2012-2013 Convocations Schedule
The weekly convocation series is a shared campus experience that brings students, faculty, and staff together for one hour for a lecture or presentation from specialists in a variety of disciplines. The goal of the convocation series is to stimulate thought and conversation on a wide range of subjects. Convocations are open to the public and free of charge.
When permission is granted by the speakers, convocations will be streamed live on the Internet and available for on-demand viewing afterward. Tune in here.
Recordings of convocations prior to the academic year have been archived here. Videos of many past convocations are also in the Gould Library collection.
Carleton students, faculty, and staff may submit suggestions for future convocation speakers with this online form.
Convocation: Michelle Alexander
Michelle Alexander is a highly acclaimed civil rights lawyer, advocate, and legal scholar who currently holds a joint appointment at the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity and the Moritz College of Law at The Ohio State University. Prior to joining the Kirwan Institute, Professor Alexander was an Associate Professor of Law at Stanford Law School, where she directed the Civil Rights Clinic. Alexander challenges the conventional wisdom that with the election of Barack Obama as president, our nation has “triumphed over race.” Jim Crow laws were wiped off the books decades ago, but today an astounding percentage of the African American community is warehoused in prisons or trapped in a permanent, second-class status, much like their grandparents before them who lived under an explicit system of racial control. Alexander argues that the sudden and dramatic mass incarceration of African American men, primarily through the War on Drugs, has created a new racial under caste – a group of people defined largely by race that is subject to legalized discrimination, scorn, and social exclusion. The old forms of discrimination – discrimination in employment, housing, education, and public benefits; denial of the right to vote; and exclusion from jury service – are suddenly legal once you’re labeled a felon. She challenges the civil rights community, and all of us, to place mass incarceration at the forefront of a new movement for racial justice in America. The title of her presentation is “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.”
Time: 10:50 am
Duration: 1 hour
Location: Skinner Chapel
Sponsored by: College Relations
Contact: Kerry Raadt, College Relations, x4308
This event occurs on:
- Friday, February 10th, 2012
Categories:
Audiences:
Students, Faculty, Staff, Alumni, General Public, Families, Prospective Students, New Students