As defenders of young people, a critical piece of our work is advancing racial justice.
Because the systems we work in exacerbate the disparate treatment of Black, Latino/a, and Native/Indigenous youth, the Gault Center and Georgetown Law’s Juvenile Justice Clinic & Initiative have created a portfolio of tools and trainings to equip our community with the resources necessary to help eradicate racial injustice in the juvenile legal system.
If you would like to be notified of our upcoming Racial Justice Training Series webinars, please join our listservs, where we send notices of training opportunities.
2024
Our 2024 Racial Justice Webinar focused on a collective call to action for the youth defense community to transform the juvenile legal system by centering youth and their constitutional rights to freedom, liberty, and equality. This webinar equipped youth defenders with practical tools rooted in the National Youth Defense System Standards to uphold and strengthen the constitutional rights of youth as a mechanism to break down systemic and racial injustice.
2023
Our 2023 Racial Justice Training Series focused on systemic racism, including the education system, behavioral health, and children’s access to safe play spaces. The recordings of these sessions are below.
2022
In 2022, the Racial Justice Training Series took a deep dive into the content of each chapter in Professor Kristin Henning’s book, The Rage of Innocence: How America Criminalizes Black Youth. These sessions were recorded, and they are available below.
2020-2021
In 2020 and 2021, the Racial Justice Training Series offered a four-part program intended to provide youth defense professionals with the knowledge they need to advance racial justice as part of their work defending young people. Three of the sessions are available to all youth defense and juvenile court professionals: Implicit Racial Bias, Policing as Trauma, and Race & the Fourth. The fourth session, Litigating Race & Adolescence, is available to trial and appellate youth defense attorneys. Please contact us If you would like to request any of these sessions in your jurisdiction.