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Understanding Systemic Racism and Challenges for Policy Change

September 24, 2020 @ 7:30 pm - 9:00 pm

Racism has been the underside of America throughout our history. The manner with which we have treated Racism has led to our current moment. How we acknowledge and confront Racism today will have a major impact on our future. This means examining our institutional challenges, class struggles, and more, important, ourselves.

Coming to terms with our history, finding the strength and courage to make a change will be discussed by our thoughtful distinguished experts.

David Dante Troutt is a Distinguished Professor of Law and Justice John J. Francis Scholar at Rutgers Law School-Newark where he also directs the Center on Law, Inequality, and Metropolitan Equity (CLiME). Current CLiME research initiatives examine gentrification, equitable growth strategies in Newark, and place-based disparities in the context of fair housing, psychological trauma among school children, child welfare, and other areas of institutional inquiry. He emphasizes using the law and interdisciplinary study to understand structural inequality and to formulate legal and policy reform strategies. Troutt teaches tort law, intellectual property, and a multidisciplinary approach to racial and economic inequality called metropolitan equity (land use, civil rights, state and local government, housing, and poverty law). His most recent book, The Price of Paradise: The Costs of Inequality and a Vision for a More Equitable America (NYU Press), examines six cultural assumptions that have informed legal rules and public policy across American communities to reveal how they contribute to structural inequality at a time of immense demographic change.

Alex S. Vitale is a Professor of Sociology and Coordinator of the Policing and Social Justice Project at Brooklyn College and a Visiting Professor at London Southbank University. He has spent the last 30 years writing about policing and consults both police departments and human rights organizations internationally. Prof. Vitale is the author of City of Disorder: How the Quality of Life Campaign Transformed New York Politics and The End of Policing. His academic writings on policing have appeared in Policing and Society, Police Practice and Research, Mobilization, and Contemporary Sociology. He is also a frequent essayist, whose writings have been published in The NY Times, Washington Post, The Guardian, The Nation, Vice News, Fortune, and USA Today. He has also appeared on CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, NPR, PBS, Democracy Now, and The Daily Show with Trevor Noah.