Charting the Aftermath of Equality: Brown, SFFA & the Continuing Struggle for Racial Justice

The Belinda Sutton Symposium in Honor of Charles Ogletree, Jr. will take place April 11. The symposium will be hosted by the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice.

In Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard (SFFA v. Harvard), the Supreme Court interpreted Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the 14th Amendment to prohibit race-conscious college admissions programs at Harvard and the University of North Carolina. The Court’s opinion in SFFA has reconfigured its equality jurisprudence from an albeit tenuous commitment to substantive equality to an unprecedented commitment to colorblindness.

As we mark the 70th anniversary of the Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education, the Court’s SFFA decision compels our society to grapple anew with the meaning of equality and racial justice for a multiracial polity. Charting the Aftermath will explore how we arrived at this moment, how we should address contemporary challenges to racial justice, and where we go from here.

Interim Provost John Manning proposed the Belinda Sutton Symposium as part of Harvard Law School’s commitment to deepen our understanding of the legacy of slavery and further the as yet unfinished work of advancing racial justice, and as an expression of the school’s desire to honor the enslaved people whose labor contributed to its creation. This Symposium is dedicated to the memory and indelible legacy of Professor Charles Ogletree, Jr., the visionary founder of the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice. His eloquent and impactful writings on Brown v. Board of Education continue to inspire us in our quest for a more equitable and just society.

Speakers include:

• Kevin Brown, Richard S. Melvin Professor Emeritus, Indiana University Maurer School of Law
• Devon Carbado, The Honorable Harry Pregerson Professor of Law, UCLA Law School
• Justin Driver, Robert R. Slaughter Professor of Law, Yale Law School
• Jonathan Feingold, Associate Professor of Law, Boston University School of Law
• Osamudia James, Professor of Law, UNC School of Law
• Olatunde Johnson, Ruth Bader Ginsburg ’59 Professor of Law, Columbia Law School
• Richard Kahlenberg, Professorial Lecturer, Trachtenberg School of Public Policy and Public Administration, George Washington University
• Jerry Kang, Distinguished Professor of Law, UCLA Law School
• Nancy Leong, Associate Dean for Faculty Scholarship & Provost Professor, Strum College of Law
• Rachel Moran, Professor of Law, Texas A&M University School of Law
• Melissa Murray, Professor of Constitutional and Family Law, NYU School of Law
• Kimberly J. Robinson, Martha Lubin Karsh and Bruce A. Karsh Bicentennial Professor of Law, UVA Law

Speakers also include HLS faculty:

• Tomiko Brown-Nagin
• John Goldberg
• Randall Kennedy
• Kenneth W. Mack
• Martha Minow