Speakers:
Kevin Brown, Mitchell Willoughby Professor of Law, University of South Carolina School of Law
Ahmed Lavalais, Assistant Professor of Law, College of Law, University of Cincinnati
Moderator: Prof. Norman Ho, PKU School of Transnational Law
Date & Time: December 22, 2023 (Friday), 12:15 PM – 1:30 PM (Beijing Time)
Location (IN-PERSON PRESENTATION): STL209
Zoom Meeting ID (for remote participants): 825 5949 0788 (Passcode: 331969)
Language: English
Abstract:
Beginning with the Haitian Revolution, as non-White peoples, over the course of roughly 200 years, began the long push to free themselves from the yoke of global White domination, the White Supremacist politic coalesced around a key rhetorical refinement: While White Supremacist thinkers had long justified global domination of non-Whites as a project of benevolent hegemony, the fierce challenges to slavery saw White imperialists shift their justifications to the language of self-defense, with non-White emancipation constructed as a dire threat to the safety of White peoples and their interests. After the U.S. Civil War, with the federal government quickly reneging on promises of equitable treatment, Black liberation discourse increasingly embraces the view that the African-American struggle against racial subordination was simply a local battle in an ongoing war against worldwide White domination. Filipino resistance to Spanish and U.S. imperialism, the Boxer Rebellion, the Russo-Japanese War, and the Indian fight against British ascendancy prompted sustained interest among African-American intellectuals in the notion of a global alliance of people of color against White Supremacy, and in the particular value of engaging with parallel freedom struggles playing out across Asia.
Speakers' bio:
Kevin Brown
Professor Kevin Brown joined the faculty of the University of South Carolina School of Law on June 1, 2022. Before that, he had been on the faculty of Indiana University Maurer School of Law since 1987. In 1978, Brown graduated with distinction from the Indiana University Kelley School of Business where he majored in Accounting. Brown graduated from Yale Law School in 1982. After graduation, he joined the Indianapolis law firm of Baker & Daniels (now Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP) until 1987.
He teaches Torts, Law and Education, Race & Law, and Transnational Inequality on a regular basis but has also taught Law & Education, Criminal Law, Sports Law and Law & Development. Brown has been a visiting professor at the University of Texas School of Law, the University of Alabama School of Law, and the University of San Diego School of Law. He has been affiliated with universities on four different continents including the National Law School of India University in Bangalore, India; the Indian Law Institute in New Delhi, India; the law faculty of the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa; the law faculty of the University of Cape Town in Cape Town, South Africa; Adilet Law School in Almaty, Kazakhstan; the University of Central America in Managua, Nicaragua; and the School of Transnational Law of Peking University in Shenzhen. Brown also spent the spring semester of 2014 teaching in the London Law School Consortium Program.
Brown was an original participant in both the first Critical Race Theory Workshop held in Madison, Wisconsin in 1989 (as well as the next four annual workshops) and the first People of Color Conference held in Chicago in 1991. For over 35 years his primary research interests are in the areas of race, law and education and the global impact of the African-American struggle. Brown has published over 80 articles or comments on issues such as critical race theory, school desegregation, affirmative action, African-American Immersion Schools, increasing school choice, the impact of the African-Americans on anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa, and the inspiration the 250 million Dalits in India have drawn from African-Americans. Carolina Academic Press published his 2005 book,Race, Law and Education in the Post Desegregation Eraand his 2014 book, Because of Our Success: The Changing Racial and Ethnic Ancestry of Blacks on Affirmative Action. His chapter entitled "The History and Conceptual Elements of Critical Race Theory," is the first chapter in the Handbook of Critical Race Theory in Education. A frequent speaker at scholarly conferences, Brown has spoken on issues of race, education, diversity, or the global impact of African-Americans over 300 times including at the annual Convention of the NAACP, the Congressional Black Caucus Braintrust Meetings, the National Bar Association, the National Summit of Black Women Lawyers, the American Bar Association, the Justices of the Indiana Supreme Court, and the High Commission of India in London; at several leading law schools and universities including Harvard, Columbia, NYU, Vanderbilt, Virginia, Duke, Cornell, Emory, Northwestern, UCLA, and Texas; and several overseas institutions including at Oxford University, the University of Mumbai, University of Kasel, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Al-Quds University outside Jerusalem, Jindal Global Law School, and the School of Oriental and African Studies of the University of London.
Ahmed Lavais
Professor Ahmed Lavalais joined the College of Law, University of Cincinnati as an Assistant Professor after holding a fellowship in the Policy Advocacy Clinic (PAC) at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law, and the role of policy director in the Civil Rights Division at the Orleans Parish District Attorney’s Office. He teaches in the areas of Race and the Law, Criminal Law, and Juvenile Law.
Professor Lavalais’ research explores how social attitudes and racial ideologies inform the contemporary legal doctrine, policymaking, and practices of the criminal system. His current project develops a fuller analysis of the ways in which White Supremacist thought influences key elements of contemporary criminal law.
Lavalais’ prior project explored how racialized presentations of youth crime during the 1980s and 90s contributed to contemporary legal structures that foist sociocultural and economic responsibility for crime onto Black and Latino/a communities. That piece was developed while Lavalais was at Berkeley Law working on PAC’s national multi-year campaign to abolish discriminatory monetary sanctions imposed on youth and families by the juvenile legal system.
After his fellowship, Lavalais joined the staff of Orleans Parish District Attorney Jason Williams, who was elected as part of a nationwide push to shift local prosecutor’s offices away from policies and practices long seen as contributing to mass incarceration.
As a law student, Lavalais worked at the Western Center on Law & Poverty on legislation to help end the criminalization of low-income youth; he also worked at the East Bay Community Law Center in its Education, Defense and Justice for Youth Clinic, and at the Contra Costa County Public Defender’s Office representing young people in school expulsion and delinquency proceedings.
Lavalais received his BA in philosophy from the University of California, Berkeley, graduating with honors. He earned his JD from the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law, where he was a National Jurist Law Student of the Year.
