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Mayer Brown invites you to our new year-long educational series featuring fearless conversations with experts in their fields on the experiences, perspectives and challenges of being Black in America. Please reach out to your Mayer Brown contact for a registration link to our next event. Bookmark this page and return periodically to learn about additional speakers as they are added to our series.
We look forward to growing and learning together.
Racial Justice in Corporate America: Ten Rules for Transforming the Workplace
Michelle Silverthorn is a workplace culture expert focused on inclusion. She offers key insights on the unique experiences and challenges of being a Black professional in corporate America in 2021 and specific advice on the role each one of us must play in fostering meaningful, sustainable change. Michelle has worked with Fortune 500 companies, professional service firms, non-profit organizations, universities, and other organizations across every industry.
A graduate of Princeton University and the University of Michigan Law School, Michelle practiced for two large law firms in New York and Chicago before founding her company, Inclusion Nation. She is a TEDx speaker and the author of the best-selling book, Authentic Diversity: How to Change the Workplace For Good.
A Primer on Structural Racism in America’s Institutions
Deborah N. Archer is the President of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and a nationally recognized expert in civil rights and racial justice. She is a Professor of Clinical Law and Co-Faculty Director of the Center on Race, Inequality, and the Law at NYU School of Law. Prior to that, she was an attorney with the ACLU and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, where she litigated in the areas of voting rights, employment discrimination, and school desegregation.
Professor Archer has created a custom program for us to explore the concept of systemic racism and its presence in America’s institutions. View the recording here.
A Deep Dive into the Criminal Justice System's Disparate Impact on Black Americans
Rachel Barkow served as a member of the United States Sentencing Commission from 2013 to 2019. Since 2010, she has also been a member of the Manhattan District Attorney's Office Conviction Integrity Policy Advisory Panel. Currently, she is the vice dean and Segal Family Professor of Regulatory Law and Policy and the Faculty Director of the Center on the Administration of Criminal Law at NYU. She has testified numerous times before Congress and her work has been cited by the Supreme Court and numerous lower courts. She served as a law clerk to Judge Laurence H. Silberman on the District of Columbia Circuit, and Justice Antonin Scalia on the US Supreme Court.
Professor Barkow’s scholarship focuses on applying the lessons and theory of administrative and constitutional law to the administration of criminal justice. She is the author of Prisoners of Politics: Breaking the Cycle of Mass Incarceration, the co-author of a leading casebook on criminal law, and more than 20 articles that span a range of topics.
Race, Technology and Public Policy: Bringing Accountability to Algorithms, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning
Mutale Nkonde is an artificial intelligence policy advisor and fellow at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University and a fellow at the Digital Civil Society Lab at Stanford. She is the founding CEO of AI For the People, a nonprofit communications agency with the mission to eliminate the under-representation of Black professionals in the American technology sector by 2030.
Prior to starting AI For the People, Nkonde worked in AI governance. During that time, she was part of the team that introduced the Algorithmic Accountability Act, the Deep Fakes Accountability Acts, and the No Biometric Barriers to Housing Act to the US House of Representatives. She started her career as a broadcast journalist and produced documentaries for the BBC, CNN and ABC.
Additional speakers will be added periodically. Be sure to check back.