2023 IDI Speaker Series
The Institutional Diversity and Inclusion Speaker Series at Michigan State University brings experts into conversation with Vice President and Chief Diversity Officer, Jabbar R. Bennett, Ph.D. to talk about current diversity, equity and inclusion topics impacting higher education.
The 2nd annual signature event features:
Ending the Legacy of Racism in Medicine
This event is presented by the MSU Youth Equity Project and DEI Graduate Certificate program in the College of Social Science.
Tuesday, April 4, 2023, 6:00 – 8:00 p.m.
Kellogg Hotel and Conference Center, Auditorium
219 S Harrison Rd, East Lansing, MI 48824
Join Vice President and Chief Diversity Officer Jabbar R. Bennett, Ph.D. for a conversation with University of Pennsylvania Professor Dorothy Roberts, an internationally recognized scholar and social advocate. This event is an opportunity for the MSU community to learn about the false biological concepts of race, structural racism, and conscious or unconscious racial bias and how they all contribute to racial inequities in health.
The medical profession has long defined disease and treated patients according to race. But race-based medicine can be traced back to false assumptions about innate biological differences and to excuses for slavery and medical exploitation. Today, race-based medicine diverts attention and resources from the social determinants that cause appalling racial gaps in health. By understanding how racism has helped to structure medical knowledge, practice, and policies, we can end this backward legacy and collectively build a more equitable and heathier society.
Dorothy Roberts, J.D. (University of Pennsylvania)
Dorothy Roberts is the 14th Penn Integrates Knowledge Professor and George A. Weiss University Professor of Law & Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania, with joint appointments in the Departments of Africana Studies and Sociology and the Law School, where she is the inaugural Raymond Pace and Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander Professor of Civil Rights. She is also the founding director of the Penn Program on Race, Science, and Society. An internationally recognized scholar, public intellectual, and social justice advocate, she has written and lectured extensively on race, gender, and class inequities in U.S. institutions and has been a leader in transforming public thinking and policy on reproductive freedom, child welfare, and bioethics.
She is the author of “Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty” (Pantheon, 1997/Vintage, 2017), “Shattered Bonds: The Color of Child Welfare” (Basic Books, 2001), “Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics, and Big Business Re-create Race in the Twenty-First Century “(The New Press, 2011), and “Torn Apart: How the Child Welfare System Destroys Black Families—and How Abolition Can Build a Safer World” (Basic Books, 2022), as well as more than 100 articles and book chapters, including “Race” in the 1619 Project book.
Roberts has served on the boards of directors of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Black Women’s Health Imperative, and National Coalition for Child Protection Reform, and her work has been supported by fellowships from American Council of Learned Societies, National Science Foundation, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Fulbright Program, Harvard Program in Ethics and the Professions, Stanford Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity, and Northwestern Institute for Policy Research.
Recent recognitions of her work include 2022 election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; 2022 Juvenile Law Center Leadership Prize; 2019 Honorary Doctor of Law Degree, Rutgers University-Newark; 2019 New Voices for Reproductive Justice Voice of Vision Award; 2017 election to the National Academy of Medicine; 2016 Society of Family Planning Lifetime Achievement Award; 2015 American Psychiatric Association Solomon Carter Fuller Award. Her TEDTalk, “The Problem with Race-Based Medicine,” has 1.5 million views.
Special Sponsor
MSU Youth Equity Project and DEI Graduate Certificate
Additional Sponsors
College of Education, Office of the Dean
College of Education, Office of the Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
College of Social Science, Office of the Dean
Department of African American and African Studies
Department of Educational Administration
Department of Human Development and Family Studies
Department of Teacher Education
Diversity Research Network
Center for Gender in Global Context
James Madison College
Julian Samora Research Institute
MSU College of Law
MSU Extension
Office for Institutional Diversity and Inclusion
Office of the Provost
Advising and coordinating team
Maria Isabel Ayala, Ph.D. – Director and Associate Professor, Chicano/Latino Studies Program, College of Social Science
Dorinda Carter Andrews, Ph.D. – Professor and Chair, Department of Teacher Education, College of Education
Simone Bibbs – Doctoral Student, Human Development and Family Studies
Brittany Jones – Doctoral Student, Curriculum, Instruction and Teacher Education
Kevin P. Leonard, Ph.D. – Interim Director, Native American Institute
Charles Liu, J.D. – Advising Director, River Trail Neighborhood Engagement Center, Neighborhood Student Success Collaborative
Teresa Mastin, Ph.D. – Director and Chair, Department of Advertising and Public Relations, College of Communication Arts and Sciences
Lauren Gaines McKenzie, Ph.D. – Director, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, College of Communication Arts and Sciences
Heather Shea, Ph.D. – Director, Women*s Student Services
Emilie Smith, Ph.D. – Professor, Human Development and Family Studies, College of Social Sciences Distinguished Senior Scholar; Director, MSU Youth Equity Project, Interdisciplinary Thematic Area on Marginalized Youth
IDI contributors:
- Audrey Bentley
- Evette Chavez
- Terrence L. Frazier, Ph.D.
- Deborah J. Johnson, Ph.D.
- Henry Mochida
- Matthew J. Olovson, J.D.
- Patricia L. Stewart, Ph.D.
Media contact Henry Mochida