Speaking Truth Webinar Series: Critical Race Theory - September 16, 2021
Watch the video from the September 16, 2021 program.
Critical Race Theory (CRT) dominates too many news cycles to count these days. Legislators and politicians, afraid of the power behind the Black Lives Matter Movement and other racial justice organizing that arose after the murder of George Floyd, have attacked CRT as racism against white people.
Join us in this first of three webinars in our series, Speaking Truth: Countering Disinformation About Racial History. In this program on Critical Race Theory, we welcome three leading scholars at the forefront of this debate. Hosted by LLP Co-President Reggie Harris, our guests include Dr. Gerald Torres, Professor of Environmental Justice at the Yale School of the Environment, Dr. Sue (S.E.) Houchins, who holds an appointment in the Africana Program at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, and Dr. Shameka Gerald, Director of Equity, Assessment & Strategic Operations for the Newport News Public Schools.
In this webinar, we’ll explore what CRT is, why it’s received so much backlash, and how you can speak clearly and factually to the arguments made against it.
If you miss any of the programs in this series, please know that they will be recorded and available for on-demand viewing on our YouTube channel.
Join us in this first of three webinars in our series, Speaking Truth: Countering Disinformation About Racial History. In this program on Critical Race Theory, we welcome three leading scholars at the forefront of this debate. Hosted by LLP Co-President Reggie Harris, our guests include Dr. Gerald Torres, Professor of Environmental Justice at the Yale School of the Environment, Dr. Sue (S.E.) Houchins, who holds an appointment in the Africana Program at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, and Dr. Shameka Gerald, Director of Equity, Assessment & Strategic Operations for the Newport News Public Schools.
In this webinar, we’ll explore what CRT is, why it’s received so much backlash, and how you can speak clearly and factually to the arguments made against it.
If you miss any of the programs in this series, please know that they will be recorded and available for on-demand viewing on our YouTube channel.
Panelists
Dr. Sue Houchins
Dr. Sue (S.E.) Houchins
Sue E. Houchins, Ph. D., pursued graduate studies at UCLA in Medieval English literature and at The Union Institute Graduate School in African diasporic, gender, and sexuality studies focused through literature and religion. After teaching as a member of the Intercollegiate Department of Black Studies at the Claremont Colleges for more than twenty years, she left the professoriate to enter a Carmelite Monastery. When she departed religious life, she accepted an award as Research Associate in the Harvard Divinity School Women’s Studies in Religion Program, on whose advisory board she serves today. Later she became a Chancellor’s Fellow in UC Berkeley’s Rhetoric Department before joining the faculty of Bates College as an associate professor in Africana with joint teaching responsibilities in the Program of Gender and Sexuality.
Houchin's scholarship has concentrated on Black women’s experience of the Divine: for example, the “Introduction” to Spiritual Narratives (The Schomburg Library of Nineteenth-Century Black Women Writers-1991), “Anowa: Paradoxical Queen-Mother of the Diaspora” (2012), Black Bride of Christ: Chicaba, an African Nun in Eighteenth-Century Spain (2018), and “’Translation of Oneself into the Otherness of Languages’ Where Madness and Mysticism Meet: A Reading of Bessie Head’s A Question of Power.” In addition, after earning a certificate as an archivist, she has co-directed grants to refurbish, organize, and preserve the Bessie Head-Khama Family Archives in Serowe, Botswana, as well as aided in the organizing and cataloging of the Baltimore Carmelite Monastery archival documents from Vatican II to the present.
Both her teaching and research proceed from the intersection formed by the discourses of race, gender and sexuality. For example, this semester she offers a class entitled “Black Feminist Activist and Intellectual Traditions,” where she uses critical race theory as one mode of intellectual inquiry. This interdisciplinary course is part of the curricula of Africana, Gender and Sexuality, English, and History Departments.
Houchin's scholarship has concentrated on Black women’s experience of the Divine: for example, the “Introduction” to Spiritual Narratives (The Schomburg Library of Nineteenth-Century Black Women Writers-1991), “Anowa: Paradoxical Queen-Mother of the Diaspora” (2012), Black Bride of Christ: Chicaba, an African Nun in Eighteenth-Century Spain (2018), and “’Translation of Oneself into the Otherness of Languages’ Where Madness and Mysticism Meet: A Reading of Bessie Head’s A Question of Power.” In addition, after earning a certificate as an archivist, she has co-directed grants to refurbish, organize, and preserve the Bessie Head-Khama Family Archives in Serowe, Botswana, as well as aided in the organizing and cataloging of the Baltimore Carmelite Monastery archival documents from Vatican II to the present.
Both her teaching and research proceed from the intersection formed by the discourses of race, gender and sexuality. For example, this semester she offers a class entitled “Black Feminist Activist and Intellectual Traditions,” where she uses critical race theory as one mode of intellectual inquiry. This interdisciplinary course is part of the curricula of Africana, Gender and Sexuality, English, and History Departments.
Dr. Gerald Torres
Dr. Gerald Torres
Gerald Torres is Professor of Environmental Justice at the Yale School of the Environment, with a secondary appointment as Professor of Law at the Law School.
A pioneer in the field of environmental law, Torres has spent his career examining the intrinsic connections between the environment, agricultural and food systems, and social justice. His research into how race and ethnicity impact environmental policy has been influential in the emergence and evolution of the field of environmental justice. His work also includes the study of conflicts over resource management between Native American tribes, states, and the federal government.
Previously, Torres taught at Cornell Law School, the University of Texas Law School, and the University of Minnesota Law School, serving as an associate dean at both. He is also a former president of the Association of American Law Schools and served as deputy assistant attorney general for the Environment and Natural Resources Division of the U.S. Department of Justice during the Clinton administration.
Torres’s past work has examined how U.S. regulations have created racially or ethnically marginalized communities that bear a disproportionate share of environmental burdens and also has focused on developing strategies to improve governmental decision-making. He is also a leading scholar in critical race theory — a theoretical framework that examines questions of race and racism from a legal standpoint. His book The Miner’s Canary: Enlisting Race, Resisting Power, Transforming Democracy, coauthored with Lani Guinier, was described as “one of the most provocative and challenging books on race produced in years.”
A pioneer in the field of environmental law, Torres has spent his career examining the intrinsic connections between the environment, agricultural and food systems, and social justice. His research into how race and ethnicity impact environmental policy has been influential in the emergence and evolution of the field of environmental justice. His work also includes the study of conflicts over resource management between Native American tribes, states, and the federal government.
Previously, Torres taught at Cornell Law School, the University of Texas Law School, and the University of Minnesota Law School, serving as an associate dean at both. He is also a former president of the Association of American Law Schools and served as deputy assistant attorney general for the Environment and Natural Resources Division of the U.S. Department of Justice during the Clinton administration.
Torres’s past work has examined how U.S. regulations have created racially or ethnically marginalized communities that bear a disproportionate share of environmental burdens and also has focused on developing strategies to improve governmental decision-making. He is also a leading scholar in critical race theory — a theoretical framework that examines questions of race and racism from a legal standpoint. His book The Miner’s Canary: Enlisting Race, Resisting Power, Transforming Democracy, coauthored with Lani Guinier, was described as “one of the most provocative and challenging books on race produced in years.”
Dr. Shameka Gerald
Dr. Shameka Gerald
Shameka Gerald serves as the Director of Equity, Assessment & Strategic Operations - Newport News Public Schools, Newport News, Virginia. Skilled in Student Empowerment, Equitable Learning Outcomes, Data Analysis, Program Evaluation, Educational Technology Integration, Public Speaking, Community Engagement and Staff Development, Gerald is a transformative leader with a demonstrated history of improving education for all students.
Host/Moderator
Mr. Reggie Harris
Mr. Reggie Harris
Reggie Harris, co-president of the Living Legacy Project, is a singer-songwriter, storyteller and world-renowned song-leader who is a powerful interpreter of the global music narrative. A passionate, engaging inspirational entertainer and concert artist Reggie is recognized for focusing new energy on the important role of music in the discourse for inclusion and the struggle for human rights using the lessons of history as a base.
Harris has a passion for education. He has been affiliated with the John F Kennedy Center’s Partners in Education program as a teaching artist for over three decades.
Using performances, classroom modeling, and experience based workshops, Reggie has expanded the knowledge base in the fields of music, history, and the social sciences through groundbreaking writing, research, fieldwork, and recordings. His significant work with students and teachers has aided in the expansion and enhancement of curriculum standards at all grade levels.
Reggie has helped teachers, students and community leaders to become more effective agents and advocates of student-based learning. His knowledge and understanding of arts integration goals and techniques makes him an effective resource for creating synergy and understanding for students and educators. Lectures and teacher in-service presentations developed in collaboration with the Kennedy Center Partners in Education program are part of his on going outreach.
Mentored early on by Dr. Charles Blockson (a foremost authority on the Underground Railroad) and with years spent researching connections to the leaders of the Modern Civil Rights Movement, Reggie is one of the premier interpreters of the use of music in historical movements for social change.
Harris has a passion for education. He has been affiliated with the John F Kennedy Center’s Partners in Education program as a teaching artist for over three decades.
Using performances, classroom modeling, and experience based workshops, Reggie has expanded the knowledge base in the fields of music, history, and the social sciences through groundbreaking writing, research, fieldwork, and recordings. His significant work with students and teachers has aided in the expansion and enhancement of curriculum standards at all grade levels.
Reggie has helped teachers, students and community leaders to become more effective agents and advocates of student-based learning. His knowledge and understanding of arts integration goals and techniques makes him an effective resource for creating synergy and understanding for students and educators. Lectures and teacher in-service presentations developed in collaboration with the Kennedy Center Partners in Education program are part of his on going outreach.
Mentored early on by Dr. Charles Blockson (a foremost authority on the Underground Railroad) and with years spent researching connections to the leaders of the Modern Civil Rights Movement, Reggie is one of the premier interpreters of the use of music in historical movements for social change.