School-to-Prison Pipeline Topic of Sept. 6 ACLU Event

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 3, 2014

CONTACT: Lindsay Kee, ACLU-TN communications director, 615-320-7142

Nashville – Dennis D. Parker, director of the ACLU National Racial Justice Project, will discuss the “school-to-prison pipeline”—the policies and practices that push schoolchildren out of classrooms and into the juvenile and criminal justice systems—and ACLU’s work to prioritize education over incarceration on Saturday, September 6, 2014.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee discussion “Betraying Brown: How the School-to-Prison Pipeline Denies Opportunity to Children of Color” is free and open to the public. Registration will begin at noon and the discussion will follow from 12:30 until 1:30 p.m. in the Nashville Public Library Conference Center at 615 Church Street.

The ACLU National Racial Justice Project works on the school-to-prison pipeline, racial profiling, affirmative action, indigent representation, felon enfranchisement and predatory lending. The Racial Justice Project seeks to remove barriers to equal opportunity for communities of color through litigation, public education, community organizing and legislation.

Prior to directing ACLU’s Racial Justice Project, Parker was the Chief of the Civil Rights Bureau of the Office of the New York State Attorney. He also worked for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund; the employment firm of Vladeck, Waldman, Elias and Engelhardt and the New York Legal Aid Society, Criminal Defense Division in Brooklyn, New York. A graduate of Middlebury College and Harvard Law School, Parker lectures extensively on civil rights issues and is an adjunct professor at New York Law School.

At the forefront of civil liberties battles across Tennessee, ACLU-TN employs a range of strategies including advocacy, education, legislative lobbying and litigation to ensure that Tennesseans’ constitutional freedoms are being protected. An affiliate of the National ACLU, ACLU-TN is a private, non-profit, non-partisan membership organization.

For more information, call (615) 320-7142.