Duke Law faculty engage in conversation, art exhibit, on race, justice, and empathy at Nasher Museum
Professors James Coleman and Kathryn Webb Bradley took part in an interdisciplinary conversation about race, justice, and empathy at the Nasher Museum of Art on Sept. 9. The event tied into Bryan Stevenson’s memoir, Just Mercy, the 2016 Common Experience summer reading book for incoming first-year students at Duke, as well as an installation inspired by the book that is on view in the Nasher Museum’s Academic Focus Gallery until Oct. 2.
Fourteen members of the Duke Law faculty and staff, including Coleman and Bradley, have contributed to a collection of responses to works of art included in the installation and to Stevenson’s book. Their reflections are wide-ranging, relating to such matters as jury composition, artistic renderings of the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution, and how Stevenson’s narrative connects to the Black Lives Matter movement.
Coleman is the John S. Bradway Professor of the Practice of Law, director of the Duke Law Center for Criminal Justice and Professional Responsibility, and co-director of the Wrongful Convictions Clinic. Bradley directs the Legal Ethics program at Duke Law. They were joined in conversation on Sept. 9 by Christena Cleveland, associate professor of the practice of Reconciliation at Duke Divinity School; William Darity Jr., Samuel DuBois Cook Professor of Public Policy, African and African American Studies, and Economics, and director of the Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity; and Charles D. Thompson Jr., professor of the practice of Cultural Anthropology and Documentary Studies.