Reparations Symposium

On October 31, 2008, the Kansas Law Review will host a symposium highlighting empirical research supporting legal claims for reparations for slavery. The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals recently issued a pathbreaking decision on reparations in In re African-American Slave Descendants Litigation, 471 F.3d 754 (7th Cir. 2006). Slave descendants sought reparations from some of the nation’s biggest insurers, banks, and transportation companies. The court dismissed most claims for lack of standing and expiration of the statute of limitations but raised two vital questions about the matter of enduring harm: How can the purported harms that present-day blacks are alleged to suffer, collectively or individually, as a result of the enslavement of their ancestors, be empirically articulated and quantified? And what are the prospects for connecting these present harms with past harms in order to prove that particular blacks today suffer enduring injury from slavery? Symposium speakers will present empirical research on social, health, economic, criminal justice, and other disparities as well as the philosophical bases for reparations.

Presenters include:
• Roy L. Brooks, University of San Diego School of Law
• Ronald Caldwell Jr., University of Kansas
• Derrick Darby, University of Kansas
• William Darity Jr., Duke University
• Adrienne Davis, Washington University School of Law
• Stacy Elmer, University of Kansas
• Daniela Ikawa, Public Interest Law Institute/Conectas Human Rights
• Kevin Outterson, Boston University School of Law
• Ruth Peterson, The Ohio State University
• Cassia Spohn, Arizona State University
• Bruce Western, Harvard University