CLRP co-sponsors the 2024 Richard Payne Lecture in Faith, Justice, and Health Care
On November 13, 2024, the Center on Law, Race & Policy (CLRP) co-sponsored the 2024 Richard Payne Lecture in Faith, Justice, and Health Care featuring Dayna Bowen Matthew, JD, PhD, Dean and Harold H. Greene Professor of Law at the George Washington University Law School. In co-sponsorship with the Theology, Medicine and Culture Initiative at the School of Divinity, along with many other Duke University stakeholders, the event also featured a special guest performance by spoken word artist Alana Jackson.
During the event, Dean Bowen Matthew delivered a powerful lecture, “Justice in Health as a Faith Imperative.” Dean Bowen Matthew presented how America has grappled with its commitment to equal justice for all since our nation’s founding. While countless community leaders, legislators, judges, scholars, politicians, presidents, and activists have all worked tirelessly over 400 years to realize the truth of our founding aspirations, we have yet to live up to the truth that "all are created equal [and] ... are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights." Nowhere is this more plain than in the deeply divided health outcomes that separate us by race, ethnicity, geography, ability, mental health status, gender identity, and more. In fact, this lecture begins from the premise that our society is only as just as it is healthy. Missing from our quest for equality is a full appreciation of the Biblical mandate for justice in each of the social determinants that predict health outcomes. The lecture explored how achieving justice in American health is the imperative of all believers and the key to achieving liberty and justice for all. Dean Bowen Matthew went on to draw an explicit connection between law and moral purpose during the well-attended lecture.
The Richard Payne Lecture and Award in Faith, Justice, and Health Care highlights and honors academic, clinical, and lay leaders who in their work and research embody the late Dr. Payne's spirit of caring for the whole person. This year’s lecture was at the JB Duke Hotel. You can watch the Justice & Health Care Student Lunch & Conversation here.
