“At Close Range: The Curious Case of Trayvon Martin,” will take place March 20, at the University of Florida Levin College of Law in the Chesterfield Smith Ceremonial Classroom, HOL 180. The panel presentations will be from 9 a.m. – 11:30 a.m. and Blow’s keynote lecture will be from noon – 1:30 p.m. The event is free and open to the public and law school parking restrictions will be lifted in the green lots.

The panels will look at a wide variety of issues raised by the case, from a multitude of academic perspectives. Some of the featured panels include “Jim Crow Riding High: The 21^st Century Assault on African-American Voting Rights in Florida,” “Half-Baked: Weed, Race and the Demonization of Trayvon Martin,” and “Racial Profiling, Security and Human Rights.”

“The Trayvon Martin case is a social touchstone precisely because it serves up topics we’re uncomfortable talking about in public, including race, crime, policing, interracial crime, use of deadly force, black crime victims, Southern race relations, media representations of race, and gun control,” said Katheryn Russell-Brown, director of the CSRRR and Chesterfield Smith Professor of Law. “The case offers an important opportunity for us to learn about, discuss and debate these myriad and overlapping issues. Our Spring Lecture event will contribute to the national discussion of the case and emphasize policy recommendations.”

The departments of political science; health services; philosophy; sociology, criminology and law; journalism and communications; history; English; anthropology, and African-American studies will all be represented. The academic papers, which comprise the basis for the panel discussions, will be compiled for the first installment in a new series in collaboration with UF Law’s Lawton Chiles Legal Information Center. The panel agendas and abstracts for the papers can be seen in the Collections of the UF Law Scholarship Repository at, http://scholarship.law.ufl.edu/csrrr_events/10thspringlecture/panels/. For more information regarding the spring lecture, please visit the CSRRR homepage, http://www.law.ufl.edu/academics/centers/csrrr.

The University of Florida Levin College of Law’s CSRRR is committed to fostering communities of dialogue on race. The center creates and supports programs designed to enhance race-related curriculum development for faculty, staff and students in collegiate and professional schools. Of the five U.S. law schools with race centers, the CSRRR is uniquely focused on curriculum development.

About Charles Blow 

After graduating cum laude from Grambling State University, keynote speaker Blow joined The New York Times in 1994 as a graphics editor and quickly became the paper’s graphics director, a position he held for nine years. The Louisiana native went on to become the paper’s design director for news before leaving in 2006 to become the art director of National Geographic Magazine.

Blow often appears on CNN’s Piers Morgan Tonight, Starting Point and AC360. He has also appeared on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, the Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell and Hardball with Chris Matthews, Fox News’ Fox and Friends, the BBC and Al Jazeera, as well as numerous radio programs.

For more information:
Matt Walker, UF Law Communications
352-273-0650, mlwalker@law.ufl.edu

Speaker: Al Brophy of North Carolina Law

Brophy writes at the intersections of race, history and property law. He is the author of “Reconstructing the Dreamland: The Tulsa Riot of 1921, Race, Reparations, Reconciliation.”

The book examines the current state of race and racial justice in the United States, stating that the racial caste system that existed during the pre-civil rights era is still in place, it has just been redesigned.

Alexander points out that even though the U.S. has elected its first black president, the fact remains that many young black men remain disadvantaged in major U.S. cities because they are labeled as felons or are already behind bars. The criminal justice system – while maintaining an outward stance of colorblindness – serves as a modern means of racial control, according to the book.

The New Jim Crow calls for a reevaluation of the current system and seeks to bring the issue of mass incarceration to the forefront of a new movement for racial justice in the U.S.

The discussion is sponsored by the Center on Children and Families and the Center for the Study of Race and Race Relations. The event is free and open to the public.

About Michelle Alexander:

Alexander joined the OSU faculty in 2005 where she holds a joint appointment with the Moritz College of Law and the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity. Prior to joining the OSU faculty, she was a member of the Stanford Law School faculty, where she served as Director of the Civil Rights Clinic. Alexander has significant experience in the field of civil rights advocacy and litigation. She has litigated civil rights cases in private practice as well as engaged in innovative litigation and advocacy efforts in the non-profit sector. For several years, Alexander served as the director of the Racial Justice Project for the ACLU of Northern California, which spearheaded a national campaign against racial profiling by law enforcement. While an associate at Saperstein, Goldstein, Demchak & Baller, she specialized in plaintiff-side class action suits alleging race and gender discrimination. Alexander is a graduate of Stanford Law School and Vanderbilt University. Following law school, she clerked for Justice Harry A. Blackmun on the United States Supreme Court and for Chief Judge Abner Mikva on the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

Contact: Melissa Bamba, The Center for the Study of Race and Race Relations, 352-273-0614, bamba@law.ufl.edu or Debbie Willis, Center on Children & Families, 352-273-0613, willisd@law.ufl.edu.

There are no more seats available for the event, which will be held at the UF Hilton Hotel, but members of the media are invited. If you plan to attend, please contact the UF Levin College of Law Office of Communications at 352-273-0650 so accommodations can be made.

In 1998, Mickle became the first black federal judge of the Northern District of Florida following his nomination by President Bill Clinton and subsequent unanimous confirmation by the U.S. Senate. It was just one in a long list of firsts for Mickle, who in September 1962 was one of the first black undergraduates to integrate UF. In April 1965, he was the first black to graduate from UF, and in March 1970, Mickle was only the second black to graduate from the UF College of Law.

Mickle was the first black to practice law in Alachua County in June 1972, and just over seven years later became the county’s first black county judge. He was the first black circuit judge appointed in the Eighth Judicial Circuit in October 1984, and was the first black from the circuit appointed to the First District Court of Appeal in January 1993. He was also the first black graduate to receive UF’s Distinguished Alumnus Award, which was presented to Mickle at commencement exercises in May 1999.

Friday’s event begins with a wine-and-cheese reception at 5:30 p.m., followed by dinner at 6:30 p.m. The program begins at 7:30 p.m. with welcoming remarks by UF Law Professor Katheryn Russell-Brown, director of the Center for the Study of Race and Race Relations; UF President Bernard Machen; UF Law Dean Robert Jerry, II; and Alachua County Commissioner Cynthia Chestnut.

Other speakers at the event include UF Law Professors Kenneth Nunn and Sharon Rush; W. George Allen (JD 62), the first black to receive a degree from UF Law; UF law student Jonathan Blocker, president of the Black Law Students Association (BLSA); and former Gainesville Mayor Aaron Green (JD 72), an attorney and longtime friend of Mickle who will introduce him at Friday’s event.

The Griot Oral Competition is designed to support the development of legal oratory and research skills in defense of racial equality and justice. The team finishing in first place will be awarded $2,500, with $1,500 going to the second place team and $1,000 to third place. Breakfast and lunch will be provided, and the UF community is encouraged to come and support these teams of students. For more information contact the CSRRR at csrrr@law.ufl.edu or 352-273-0614.

GAINESVILLE, Fla.—A series of several high-profile incidents in recent months—from Mel Gibson’s anti-Semitic meltdown to more serious cases involving the fatal undercover police killings of groom-to-be Sean Bell and an 88-year-old grandmother, Kathryn Johnston—have again brought attention to the subject of racial issues and will serve as the launching point for discussion at a forum entitled “A Series of Unfortunate Events? A Look at Race,” from noon to 2 p.m. Feb. 26 at the University of Florida Levin College of Law. The event is free and open to the public.

Sponsored by the Center for the Study of Race and Race Relations (CSRRR), the event will be held in Holland Hall room 355B on the law school campus. Panelists include Milagros Peña, director of the Center For Women’s Studies and Gender Research and Associate Professor of Sociology and Women’s Studies at UF; Faye Harrison, professor of African American Studies and Anthropology at UF and author of Resisting Racism and Xenophobia: Global Perspectives on Race, Gender, and Human Rights; Yuko Fujino, a doctoral student in the UF Department of Sociology whose teaching and research interests include U.S. racial and ethnic relations; and UF Law Professor Kenneth Nunn, whose teaching and research focuses on criminal law and African Americans and law.

Jabari Asim, a syndicated columnist, deputy editor of The Washington Post Book World, and author of the forthcoming The N Word: Who Can Say It, Who Shouldn’t and Why, will give the keynote. Florida State Senator Anthony C. Hill, Sr. will make opening remarks. A reception will immediately follow the event. For more information, contact the center at csrrrr@law.ufl.edu or 273-0614.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Joyce Ann Brown, author of Justice Denied and president of Mothers (Fathers) for the Advancement of Social Systems Inc. (MASS), will present a lecture at noon on Wednesday, Nov. 8, at the University of Florida’s Levin College of Law.

Brown will talk about her experiences of being accused, convicted, and sentenced to life in prison for a murder she did not commit and her successful fight to have her wrongful conviction overturned. MASS is a non-profit foundation that helps people being released from prison readjust to life without bars, providing support for the children and families of adult offenders at high risk for substance abuse, medical or emotional disorders and poverty. All are welcome to attend the free presentation.

Brown was arrested for a 1980 murder in Dallas based on testimony from a witness who identified her from a photograph. She had become a suspect when police learned that a car used in the crime had been rented by someone named Joyce Ann Brown. Unfortunately, the Joyce Ann Brown who rented the car and the Joyce Ann Brown whom the police arrested were different people. An eyewitness erroneously identified the one who had been arrested, and that Joyce Ann Brown was charged with the crime. Before trial, police and prosecutors discovered the error but proceeded with the prosecution.

Brown was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. After an investigation by Jim McCloskey of Centurion Ministries and an exposé by CBS’ “60 Minutes,” Brown’s conviction was reversed because police and prosecutors had failed to turn over exculpatory evidence in their possession. All charges were dismissed in 1990.

Brown’s lecture, to be presented in the college’s Holland Hall, room 355B, is co-sponsored by the Center for the Study of Race and Race Relations (CSRRR), the Black Law Students Association (BLSA) and the Criminal Law Association (CLA).

For more information contact Melissa Bamba at bamba@law.ufl.edu or (352) 273-0614.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — How did O.J. Simpson – hardly an activist on black issues before his arrest – become a hero to some in the black community after being charged with murder? Why were blacks willing to vote for former Washington, D.C., mayor Marion Barry after he was convicted of drug charges? And why is the black community less likely to extend similar support to noncelebrity blacks who face prosecution for crimes?

In her new book, “Protecting Our Own: Race, Crime, and African Americans,” University of Florida law professor Katheryn Russell-Brown takes an unflinching look at how race, crime, fame and gender affect public attitudes toward people involved in public scandals. The book includes a foreword by New York University law professor Derrick Bell, a founding figure in the field of Critical Race Theory.

“This book was inspired by the O.J. Simpson case,” said Russell-Brown, director of the Center for the Study of Race and Race Relations at UF’s Levin College of Law. “I was intrigued by the black community’s support for O.J., when he had in many ways separated himself from the community.”

Opinions about the Simpson verdict remain seriously divided along racial lines, with a majority of blacks believing he was set up and a majority of whites convinced he got away with murder. In that and other racially charged criminal cases, each side is mystified by the other side’s decision-making process.

Russell-Brown examined 30 cases involving what she labels “black protectionism.” She also held focus groups with blacks and finds there is a simple explanation for the black-white divide in these cases.

“When white people hear that a black celebrity is accused of a crime, they ask one question: Did he do it?” Russell-Brown said. “For African-Americans, there’s a longer list of questions. Did he do it? If he did, was he set up? Is he the only person who has committed this offense? And is he being treated the same as whites who have done the same thing?”

Those questions are rooted in American history, which is rife with examples of entrapment and false prosecution of blacks, Russell-Brown said.

She notes specific historical examples of black celebrities who faced criminal charges that, even if true, seem in retrospect to be the result of selective prosecution. For example, after boxing great Jack Johnson defeated a white man to win the heavyweight title in 1910, he was convicted of transporting a woman across state lines for immoral purposes. Similarly, U.S. Rep. Adam Clayton Powell, who represented Harlem in Congress, spent months defending himself against a $3,000 tax evasion lawsuit.

Whether or not those people were guilty, Russell-Brown said, it is clear today that they were charged because they were outspoken, powerful and black. It’s a lesson black people remember when they hear that a rich or
famous black man is charged with a crime, she said.

“Russell-Brown’s book takes a fresh perspective on the concept of linked fate, the idea that African-Americans are alternately embarrassed, protective about, or inspired by the acts of famous or infamous members of their race, by using focus groups and critical race theory to analyze this confounding phenomenon,” said Randolph Stone, a clinical professor of law at the University of Chicago.

Blacks aren’t the only people who engage in protectionism, Russell-Brown notes. White people extend a similar protectionism to police officers facing charges of brutality. She cites the example of the beating of Rodney King, which was caught on video tape, and the killing of Amadou Diallo, an unarmed man who was shot by New York police who had falsely concluded he was a serial rapist.

“In these cases, white people noted that the police have a tough job, that they have to make split-second decisions, or, in the King case, that we really don’t know what happened before the tape was turned on,” Russell-Brown said.

Russell-Brown said she is concerned about the black community’s failure to extend protection to black defendants of average means, who deserve the presumption of innocence.

“The larger community gains when every member is valued and afforded the same protections, regardless of their fame or fortune,” Russell-Brown said.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – In 1954 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled public school segregation unconstitutional, and a national conference scheduled here March 25-26 by the University of Florida College of Law will focus on the impact and challenges of that landmark decision in observance of its 50th anniversary.

Leading educators, government officials and legal practitioners will participate in the “Beyond Brown: Children, Race and Education” forum co-sponsored by the law school’s Center on Children and Families (CCF) and the Center for the Study of Race and Race Relations (CSRRR) and based on the Brown v. Board of Education decision

Opening session will begin at 4 p.m. on the 25th, in Holland Hall auditorium, and will include a screening of the award-winning documentary film, “The Intolerable Burden,” about effects of the Brown decision on a Mississippi town. Plenaries and workshops on the 26th will be at the Hilton UF Conference Center, starting at 8:30 a.m.

According to conference organizers Professors Katheryn Russell-Brown, CSRRR director, and Barbara Bennett Woodhouse, CCF director, topics will include assessing the legacy and realizing the promise of Brown, children’s role in the struggle for justice, weighing the costs and benefits of integration, politics of education reform and perspectives on equality.

Professors Leland Ware of the University of Delaware and Edgar Epps of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee will give keynote addresses, respectively, at the opening and luncheon sessions on the 26th. Ware, former trial attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice civil division, is vice president of the national board of directors of the American Civil Liberties Union; Epps, former professor of urban education at the University of Chicago, has studied desegregation efforts and effects of vouchers, magnet and charter schools on urban education.

Among nationally known educators scheduled to speak and their affiliated universities are R. Richard Banks, Stanford; Robin D. Barnes, Connecticut; Tomiko Brown-Nagin, Washington -St. Louis; Peggy Cooper Davis, New York; David I. Levine, California-Hastings College of Law; Alfred D. Mathewson, New Mexico; and Vivian Gunn Morris, Memphis.

St. Petersburg Times columnist Bill Maxwell; accountability specialist Curtis L. Morris of Memphis, TN., city schools; Shirley, N.Y., elementary school principal Janet Windbish; and attorney Tim Shea, Orange County, FL., School Board, also will participate.

In addition to Russell-Brown and Bennett-Woodhouse, UF law school faculty taking part in the program include Nancy Dowd, Joan Flocks, Berta Hernandez-Truyol, Kenneth B. Nunn, Juan F. Perea, Sharon E. Rush, Sherrie Russell-Brown, Michelle Jacobs, Christopher Slobogin, Michael Wolf and Monique Haughton Worrell.

UF faculty participating from other colleges are Mark Fondacaro, psychology; and Regan Garner, Anane Olatunji and Sevan Terzian, education.

The Florida Bar has approved 10 hours of Continuing Legal Education credit for legal practitioners attending the forum.

Complete event details can be found at http://www.law.ufl.edu/childconference or by contacting conference coordinator Debbie Kelley, 352.392.9001, kelley@law.ufl.edu, or Barbara DeVoe, law school director of conference planning, 352,392.8070, devoe@law.ufl.edu.

Conference Administrators & information contacts:

Barbara Bennett-Woodhouse, 352.392.9001, woodhouse@law.ufl.edu
Katheryn Russell-Brown, 352.392.2225, russellBrownK@law.ufl.edu

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – A new book by University of Florida Levin College of Law Professor Katheryn Russell-Brown now in national distribution argues that “underground codes” used to discuss crime and race subtly connects Blackness with deviance, thus reinforcing stereotypes of crime and criminality.

Underground Codes – Race, Crime and Related Fires by Russell-Brown, director of the law school’s Center for the Study of Race and Race Relations, is published by New York University Press. Chapters address such topics as racial profiling, police brutality, Black protectionism, American Indians and justice, Black women and the criminal justice system and the “over-hyped discourse about gansta rap and law breaking.”

“Both public discussion and empirical research indicate there are many issues involving crime and race that are overlooked, misunderstood and falsely linked,” Russell-Brown said. “It is vital we continue our analysis of the connection between crime and race and reconsider how this relationship is fostered, explicitly and tacitly.”

Russell-Brown’s first book, The Color of Crime, was published in 1998 and highly acclaimed for its discussion of racial hoaxes. Underground Codes…tackles a variety of race and crime issues, including victimization rates for Native Americans – among the highest of any racial group.

The author taught criminology at the University of Maryland for 11 years, was on the faculty at American University and City University of New York law schools and at Howard and Alabama State universities. She received her undergraduate degree from University of California-Berkeley, her law degree from UC-Hastings, and a Ph.D. in criminology at Maryland. She joined the UF law school faculty in 2003.

Contact information and interviews: Professor Russell-Brown’s office phone: 352.392.2225
eMail: RussellBrownK@law.ufl.edu

University of Maryland Associate Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice Katheryn Russell-Brown has been named director of the Levin College of Law Center for the Study of Race and Race Relations (CSRRR).

“We conducted a very thorough national search to find someone with Katheryn’s unique combination of scholarship and leadership,” said Dean Jon Mills. “She not only has strong academic credentials, she possesses the ability to foster unity and understanding across campus and throughout the state. I believe she will deepen our knowledge of racial issues and help us develop strategies for the future.”

“This is a wonderful opportunity to continue and elevate the important but challenging local, national, and global conversation on race,” said Russell-Brown. “UF’s law school offers an intellectually rigorous and welcoming environment for this work.”

The first of its kind at a Southern law school, the Center for the Study of Race and Race Relations seeks to promote racial understanding, interracial dispute resolution, racial equality and racial healing, and to influence public policy through university, local, state and national projects. It also brings guest speakers to campus and hosts state and national conferences, such as the “Rhyme, Rhetoric and Race” conference in Gainesville March 27-28.

“Katheryn Russell-Brown is superbly qualified to lead CSRRR,” said Search Committee member Barbara Bennett Woodhouse, David H. Levin Chair in Family Law, director of the Center on Children and the Law and co-director of the Institute for Child and Adolescent Research and Evaluation.

“We were looking for a person of vision and versatility – but we never dreamed we could find a lawyer, scholar, teacher, sociologist, mentor and administrator wrapped up in one. Katheryn is truly a renaissance woman and we were lucky to find her,” said Woodhouse.

Russell-Brown is the author of two books, The Color of Crime and the forthcoming Underground Codes: Race, Crime, and Related Fires, both published by New York University Press. Her 1994 article, “The Constitutionality of Jury Override in Alabama Death Penalty Cases,” published in the Alabama Law Review, was cited by the U.S. Supreme Court in Harris v. Alabama (1995).

She received her B.A. (Legal Studies) from the University of California-Berkeley, J.D. from the University of California Hastings Law School and Ph.D. (Criminology) from the University of Maryland. Her teaching, research and writing have been in the areas of criminal law, sociology of law and race and crime. In addition to her 11 years at Maryland, she has taught at the American University School of Law, City University of New York (CUNY) Law School, Howard University and Alabama State University. She previously worked at the Southern Poverty Law Center as a legal intern. She is a member of the American Society of Criminology, Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences, and American Bar Association.

GAINESVILLE, Fla — Internationally recognized human rights advocate and author Randall Robinson and former Jamaican cabinet minister Dudley Thompson will be featured here next week at the third annual conference on race and race relations sponsored by the University of Florida Levin College of Law.

Thompson and Robinson will join with academicians and community activists from across the country invited by the law school’s Center for the Study of Race and Race Relations, organizers for the event scheduled for Thursday and Friday at the J. Wayne Reitz Student Union. Several sessions during the two-day conference are free and open to the public.

“Mr. Robinson is known for his strong stands on South African freedom and Haitian justice, and Commissioner Thompson was involved in the nationalist struggles of Tanganyika and Kenya,” said Desta Meghoo-Peddie, acting CSRRR director. “We are honored to have two men so vital to the history of civil rights throughout the world involved in this conference.”

Among other featured participants are diversity consultant and author Peggy Nagae, Penelope Andrews of Albany Law School of Queens College/City University of New York, Vernellia Randall of the University of Dayton, David Brennan of Mercer University, Lorraine Bannai of Seattle University and Charles Pouncy of Temple University School of Law. Faculty members from the UF law school and other colleges and departments of the university also will be participating.

Robinson, a 1970 Harvard Law School graduate, will be keynote speaker at a Thursday dinner, speaking on “Reparations: Issues and Solutions.” Robinson is the author of “The Debt: The Case for Reparations to African-Americans and African Countries,” which addresses among other issues whether reparations can remedy the continuing consequences of slavery, and the just-released “The Reckoning: What Blacks Owe to Each Other.”

He established the TransAfrica Forum in 1981, an organization spearheading the movement for influencing United States politics toward international black leadership. He worked on Capitol Hill as assistant to Congressmen Charles Diggs and William Clay, lived in Africa as a Ford Foundation Fellow, and was involved in the dismantlement of apartheid in South Africa.

Thompson served as Jamaican high commissioner to several African countries, and is a former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Jamaica. He served in Britain’s Royal Air Force during World War II, attended Oxford University as a Rhodes scholar, and practiced law in many Caribbean countries * playing a role in the independence movements of Belize and the Bahamas. He recently served as lead advisory to the Jamaican government at the United Nation’s World Conference Against Racism held in South Africa, and also serves at direction of the Organization of African Unity on a group researching the issues of reparations for African Americans.

Additional conference information and registration details are available by contacting Meghoo-Peddie at 352.392.5013, or eMail: meghoo@law.ufl.edu.