IIT Chicago-Kent Announces Its Fall 2013 Documentary Film Series on Race
IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law will launch its Fall 2013 Documentary Film Series on Race on September 18, with a screening of "The Central Park 5," directed by Ken Burns, Sarah Burns and David McMahon. The film, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2012, examines the 1989 assault and rape of Trisha Meili (also known as the "Central Park Jogger"), racism and the legal system. The program will begin at 6 p.m. in the law school's Governor Richard B. Ogilvie Auditorium, 565 West Adams Street (between Clinton and Jefferson streets) in Chicago.
"This film series is designed to foster meaningful discussions each month about race among members of the IIT Chicago-Kent community—faculty, staff, students and alumni—and the general public," said Professor Bernadette Atuahene.
IIT Chicago-Kent's Documentary Film Series on Race is co-sponsored by IIT Chicago-Kent's Diversity Committee and the law school's organizations of students of color. The series is free and open to the public. Moderated discussions will be held at the end of each program. Other films in the series include:
October 17 — "A Class Divided" is journalist and filmmaker William Peters' 1985 sequel to his 1970 documentary "Eye of the Storm." In the first film, Iowa school teacher Jane Elliott created a lesson about discrimination by dividing her third-grade class by eye color and affording privileges to one group while denying them to the other. "A Class Divided" follows the students—as adults—fifteen years later.
November 13 — "Of Civil Wrongs and Rights: The Fred Korematsu Story" by Eric Paul Fournier is a 2007 documentary about a U.S.-born Japanese-American who refused the executive order to be confined to an internment camp during World War II. In 1944, Korematsu's challenge to the constitutionality of the order was heard by the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled 6-3 against him. For the next 40 years, Korematsu sought vindication.
The screenings are free and open to the public. For more information please contact Grace Akinlemibola at gakinlem@kentlaw.iit.edu.
Founded in 1888, IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law is celebrating "125 years of distinctive legal education." IIT Chicago-Kent is the law school of Illinois Institute of Technology, a private, Ph.D.-granting institution with programs in engineering, psychology, architecture, business, design and law.
