Students for Law, Justice and Culture is hosting a panel discussing the violence in Ferguson, Missouri.
A panel, “Racism, Policing and Struggles for Justice in Ferguson,” is being held today at the Athena Cinema, 20 S. Court St., at 6 p.m. in theater 212.
The event is hosted by the Students for Law, Justice and Culture and co-sponsored by the Making and Breaking the Law and Between Love and Hate themes through the College of Arts and Sciences, the Multicultural Center and the Black Student Cultural Programming Board.
President of Students for Law, Justice and Culture Katie Conlon, a junior studying history, said the panel will be comprised of professors from across the university who specialize in topics such as the criminal justice system and racial tensions.
Among the panelists will be Assistant Professor of Sociology and Criminology Kelly Faust, Professor of African American Studies Patricia Gunn and assistant professors of political science Debra Thompson and Vincent Jungkunz.
All the members of the panel are faculty affiliated with the Center for Law, Justice and Culture and were chosen to “help orient these events within larger discussions about racism in the United States,” Conlon said.
Associate Director of Multicultural Programs Winsome Chunnu-Brayda said she hopes the panel will help students to better conceptualize what happened in Ferguson.
“We need to help our students to process but process in a way that can lead to meaningful sustained action,” Chunnu-Brayda said. “(They need to) process by using constructive discourse, engage in dialogue that can lead to meaningful action. ... Whatever is going on in the society will find its way into the university because we are members of the society.”
Students for Law, Justice and Culture Treasurer Elizabeth Cychosz, a senior studying journalism and anthropology, said those who attend can expect to leave with a more critical worldview relating to states of policing and racism.
The series will consist of “events such as faculty and student panels, lectures and seminars designed to shed critical light on the socio-economic causes and consequences of mass incarceration and harsh punishment in the U.S. criminal justice system, with special attention to the disproportionately destructive impact of this system upon individuals and communities of color,” Conlon said.
The next Critical Resistance to Mass Incarceration the Student, Law, Justice and Culture Center has in the works is a workshop with prison abolition group from Columbus is expected to be scheduled in October, Conlon said.
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