Drawing upon 25 years of experience representing Black youth in D.C.'s juvenile court, Kristin Henning (Blume Professor of Law and director of the Juvenile Justice Clinic and Initiative at Georgetown Law) confronts America's irrational, manufactured fears of Black youth and makes a powerfully compelling case that the crisis in racist American policing begins with its relationship to Black children. Discriminatory and aggressive policing has socialized a generation of Black teenagers to fear and resent the police. Henning details the long-term consequences of racism and trauma Black youth experience at the hands of police and their vigilante surrogates.
Unlike white youth, who are afforded the freedom to test boundaries, experiment with sex and drugs, and figure out who they are and who they want to be, Black youth are seen as a threat to white America and are denied healthy adolescent development. Henning examines through court cases the criminalization of Black adolescent play and sexuality, and of Black fashion, hair, and music. She highlights the effects of police presence in schools, and the depth of policing-induced trauma in Black adolescents.
Free and open to the Community | A brief Book Signing will follow
CWRU School of Law, Room A59, Moot Courtroom*
11075 East Blvd., Cleveland, OH 44106
1.0 hour of CLE credit, pending approval
Presented by The Social Justice Law Center
In partnership with the Schubert Center for Child Studies and The Milton and Charlotte Kramer Law Clinic