Connecticut Bar Foundation and the Connecticut Bar Association
Join us for the Constance Baker Motley Speaker Series on Racial Inequality year one summative event.
Racial segregation characterizes every metropolitan area in the US and bears responsibility for our most serious social and economic problems – it corrupts our criminal justice system, exacerbates economic inequality, and produces large academic gaps between white and African American schoolchildren.
We’ve taken no serious steps to desegregate neighborhoods, however, because we are hobbled by a national myth that residential segregation is de facto—the result of private discrimination or personal choices that do not violate constitutional rights.
The Color of Law demonstrates, however, that residential segregation was created by racially explicit and unconstitutional government policy in the mid-twentieth century that openly subsidized whites-only suburbanization in which African Americans were prohibited from participating.
Only after learning the history of this policy can we be prepared to undertake the national conversation necessary to remedy our unconstitutional racial landscape.
Chief Justice Richard A. Robinson will facilitate a question and answer segment with Rothstein.
A panel discussion, featuring Connecticut leaders in police accountability, housing desegregation, and political access, will follow to highlight what has been done in the past year and how we will continue to address racial inequality in Connecticut in honor of the legacy of Hon. Constance Baker Motley.
- Richard Rothstein is the author of “The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America”, a “New York Times” Best Seller, and a distinguished fellow of the Economic Policy Institute, the Thurgood Marshall Institute of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, and of the Haas Institute at the University of California (Berkeley).
In addition to “The Color of Law”, he is the author of many other articles and books on race and education.
You Will Learn
- How government policies promoted segregation
- How data shows the biased impact of laws and policies
- About the CBA’s Policing Task Force’s year-long study and resulting recommendations on issues of policing in Connecticut
- How zoning supports segregation in Connecticut and the progress we have made in addressing contributing law and policies
- How racially and ethnically diverse communities continue to experience challenges to full political inclusion
Who Should Attend?
Any attorney interested in eliminating bias in laws and policies.
Note: The first 100 attendees of this seminar who request a copy of featured speaker Richard Rothstein’s book, The Color of Law, will receive a free copy. Richard Rothstein’s portion of the seminar will not be recorded.
The panel discussion will be recorded.