Mayer Brown has launched a year-long educational speaker series, “Black in America,” featuring fearless conversations with experts in their fields and members of the Mayer Brown community on the experiences, perspectives and challenges of being Black in America. Discussions will cover a number of topics, including employment, housing, criminal justice, healthcare transportation and culture.
Leading up to Black History Month, the firm kicked off its speaker series with a discussion featuring Michelle Silverthorn, a workplace culture expert focused on inclusion. Ms. Silverthorn presented on “Racial Justice in Corporate America: Ten Rules for Transforming the Workplace,” offering 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.
Upcoming events in the Black in America speaker series include:
- A Primer on Structural Racism in America's Institutions: Education, Housing, Transportation and COVID-19
This presentation features Deborah Archer, a nationally recognized expert on civil rights and racial justice. Her scholarship has appeared in leading law reviews, including Michigan Law Review, Vanderbilt Law Review, and the Harvard Civil Right-Civil Liberties Law Review. She is a professor of clinical law and co-faculty director of the Center on Race, Inequality, and the Law at New York University School of Law.
- A Deep Dive into the Criminal Justice System's Disparate Impact on Black Americans
This presentation spotlights Rachel Barkow, who has 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.
- Race, Technology and Public Policy: Bringing Accountability to Algorithms, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning
This presentation features Mutale Nkonde, 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.
“Through this speaker series, we hope to promote and nurture ongoing dialogue on Black culture and candid conversations on different experiences,” said Jeremiah DeBerry, partner and director of Diversity & Inclusion at Mayer Brown.
Additional events will be added periodically. Be sure to check here for updates.
Mayer Brown is committed to creating a diverse and inclusive work environment that offers every member of our team the opportunity and support to succeed. Through our diversity committees, affinity networks, attorney resource groups, diversity council, retreats and programs, we aim to create a work environment in which professional development and success are determined only by an individual’s ability and commitment. The firm is consistently recognized for its inclusive firm culture and practices.
