IN PERSON: Breaking the Promise of Brown: A Fireside Chat with Thiru Vignarajah HLS '05
Join the HCW and Justice Stephen Breyer's former law clerk, Thiru Vignarajah HLS '05, to discuss Justice Breyer's most impassioned opinion, a dissent in Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District, that Justice John Paul Stevens called at the time “eloquent and unanswerable."
When: Monday, February 27th, 2023, 6:30-8:30pm Eastern
Where: Clubhouse, 1070 Wisconsin Ave NW, Washington, DC, 20007
In 2007, the United States Supreme Court struck down two local school board initiatives meant to reverse extreme racial segregation in public schools. In a searing dissent to the sharply divided 5-4 decision in Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District Justice Stephen Breyer warned this was “a decision the Court and the Nation will come to regret.” A decade later, many schools and school districts across the country are more racially segregated today than they were in the late 1960s.
Please join the Harvard Club of Washington, DC for a fireside chat with Thiru Vignarajah HLS '05, Justice Breyer's former law clerk, the editor of this volume and the author of an introductory essay and a sobering update on the state of segregation in schools in America today. This intimate conversation will allow participants to explore the past, present, and future of segregation, inclusion, and the public school system in America.
About Thiru:
Thiru Vignarajah, who served as a law clerk for Justice Breyer the year of the Resegregation Cases, is CEO of one of the nation's largest community development financial institutions. He previously served as a federal and city prosecutor in Baltimore, a litigation partner at DLA Piper, and deputy attorney general for Maryland. The son of Baltimore public school teachers, Thiru attended public schools himself before studying at Yale University and Harvard Law School, where he was president of the Harvard Law Review.
Breaking the Promise of Brown is available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
Fee: FREE!
Covid-related Safety Requirements: If you have recently tested positive or have symptoms, please do not attend this event. The Club encourages everyone to be vaccinated and boosted, and to wear masks indoors when not eating or drinking, especially when social distance cannot be maintained.