NEW TIME - Danielle Allen / Cuz: The Life and Times of Michael A.

Date
Tue December 5th 2017, 7:30 - 9:00pm
Event Sponsor
The McCoy Family Center for Ethics in Society, the Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity, and the Stanford Criminal Justice Center.
Location
Stanford Law School 290

 

 

Danielle Allen speaks about her new book Cuz: The Life and Times of Michael A.

"Cuz means both "cousin" and "because." In this searing memoir, Allen unfurls a "new American story" about a world tragically transformed by the sudden availability of narcotics and the rise of street gangs-a collision, followed by a reactionary War on Drugs, that would devastate not only South Central L.A. but virtually every urban center in the nation."

Professor Allen will be joined on stage by Chloe Cockburn (Open Philanthropy Project) and Michael Romano (Stanford Law School). Cuz will be available for purchase at the event and the author will be signing copies. 

DANIELLE ALLEN is Director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics and James Bryant Conant University Professor at Harvard University. She is a political theorist who has published broadly in democratic theory, political sociology, and the history of political thought. Widely known for her work on justice and citizenship in both ancient Athens and modern America, Allen is the author of The World of Prometheus: The Politics of Punishing in Democratic Athens (2000), Talking to Strangers: Anxieties of Citizenship since Brown vs. the Board of Education (2004), Why Plato Wrote (2010), Our Declaration: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality (2014), and Education and Equality (2016). She is the co-editor of the award-winning Education, Justice, and Democracy (2013, with Rob Reich) and From Voice to Influence: Understanding Citizenship in the Digital Age (2015, with Jennifer Light). She is a Chair of the Mellon Foundation Board, past Chair of the Pulitzer Prize Board, and a member of the Open Society Foundations’ U.S. Programs Board, as well as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society.

CHLOE COCKBURN leads the Open Philanthropy Project’s strategy for investing in criminal justice policy and practice reforms to substantially reduce incarceration while maintaining public safety. Prior to joining Open Philanthropy, she oversaw state policy reform work for the ACLU’s Campaign to End Mass Incarceration. Previously, Chloe worked with the Vera Institute and the civil rights law firm of Neufeld, Scheck and Brustin, and clerked for Judge Sifton of the Eastern District of New York. Chloe graduated from Harvard University with a BA in Classics and Visual Art, and has a JD from Harvard Law School. 

MICHAEL ROMANO is the director and founder of the Three Strikes and Justice Advocacy Projects at Stanford Law School. He teaches criminal justice policy and advanced criminal litigation practice and has published several scholarly and popular press articles on criminal law, sentencing policy, prisoner reentry and recidivism, and mental illness in the justice system. As counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Michael co-authored successful statewide ballot measures in California, the Three Strikes Reform Act of 2012 (“Proposition 36”) and Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Act of 2014 (“Proposition 47”), which together resulted in reduced sentences for over 10,000 inmates convicted of nonviolent, including over 2,200 prisoners sentenced to life for minor offenses under the state’s “Three Strikes” recidivist sentencing law. Michael also founded the Ride Home prisoner reentry program, which has assisted formerly incarcerated inmates in 38 states and in 2015 partnered with Obama administration in support of the president’s executive clemency initiative. 

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