Law School's Forum on #Ferguson

This afternoon attorney Jeffery Robinson led a discussion on the events in Ferguson, MO—the killing of Michael Brown last summer, the grand jury this fall, and the protests in Ferguson and around the country—and the larger issues of racism, criminal justice, and law enforcement. Justice Sheryl Gordon McCloud and former U.S. Attorney Jenny Durkan were present and contributed to the discussion.

With a nod to Yogi Berra, Robinson titled his presentation "'You Can Observe a Lot Just by Watching': The Killing of Michael Brown and the Transparent Grand Jury Investigation."

This blog post lists some resources.

Washington State Minority and Justice Commission report mentioned by Justice Gordon McCloud: Mark Peffley et al., Justice in Washington State Survey  (2012, revised & updated 2014)

Project Implicit (Harvard website that Robinson mentioned that offers simple tests that reveal implicit bias).

•   The developers of the Implicit Assocation Test (IAT) are two social psychologists, Mahzarin R. Banaji (now at Harvard) and Anthony G. Greenwald (UW). They have written a very accessible and fascinating book reviewing the research: Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People (2013). Catalog record.
• Jerry Kang, a law professor at UCLA has done a lot of work bringing these studies into law. See his page, Getting up to speed on implicit bias. Kang has a Ted Talk on the topic, too:
  
  
  

Robinson showed a powerful spoken word video by Javon Johnson. View it here.

Robinson also had a powerful infographic with data on police stops from Racism Still Exists (which also has several other infographics).

The Cato Institute's National Police Misconduct Reporting Project is here.


1L Martina Kartman spoke about her experience going to Ferguson with a team from a Freedom School here in Seattle, the Tyree Scott Leadership Institute.

 You can find more resources in our guide, Race in the Criminal Justice System.

(updated)