University Times

Pitt law professors Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic, in the inaugural Derrick A. Bell Lecture Jan. 27, praised their mentor and the namesake of their faculty positions, in a speech called “Cultural DNA.”

The two applauded Bell as the legal scholar who has contributed most to discussions of the way racial hierarchy perpetuates itself.

Their speech, in part, also anticipates discussion at tomorrow’s (Feb. 6) law school symposium, which will focus on the 50th anniversary of the historic U.S. Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision. The 9 a.m. – 6 p.m. symposium will feature nationally acclaimed experts on race relations, including Bell, Delgado, who is Pitt’s Derrick A. Bell fellow, and Stefancic, who is Pitt’s Derrick A. Bell scholar.

Other Pitt participants at the symposium will include: David Herring, School of Law dean, who will open the symposium with a welcoming address; and panelists Larry Davis, School of Social Work dean, Donald M. Henderson Professor, and director of the Center on Race and Social Problems; Thomas Ross, professor of law; Janet Ward Schofield, professor of psychology and a senior scientist at the University’s Learning Research and Development Center, and Lu-in Wang, professor of law.

Bell, visiting professor of law at New York University School of Law and a 1957 graduate of Pitt’s law school, will deliver the keynote address, “Silent Covenant: Brown v. Board of Education and the Unfulfilled Hopes for Racial Reform,” at a 12:30 p.m. William Pitt Union luncheon that is for conference attendees only.

Law symposium participants will discuss the May 17, 1954, U.S. Supreme Court Brown decision, which proclaimed, “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.” The ruling dismantled the legal basis for segregation in more than 20 states, declaring the foundation on which it rested unconstitutional.

During three panel presentations, leading scholars in legal history and race theory will discuss the decision and the ways race consciousness has changed — or not changed — over the past half century.

The presentations and times are: “Critical Perspectives on Brown,” 9:10-10:40 a.m.; “Social Perspectives on Brown,” 10:50 a.m.- 12:20 p.m., and “Brown and Beyond,” 2:30-4 p.m. The day concludes with a reception, 4:15-6 p.m.

For more information, contact Robert Berkley Harper at 412/648-1353 or harper@law.pitt.edu.

—Peter Hart Bell sidebar