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The W.E.B. Du Bois Department of Afro-American Studies will host an online lecture titled “Rotten Trees: Racism and Bad Apples in American Policing,” by Rashawn Ray, professor of sociology at the University of Maryland, College Park, on Wednesday, Oct. 18.

The lecture, which will start at noon, is part of the department’s inaugural cross-institutional webinar lecture series themed, “Africana Studies: Renewing the Fight for Justice,” produced in collaboration with the Africana studies departments at the University of Pittsburgh and Brown University.

Ray, who is founding executive director of the Lab for Applied Social Science Research (LASSR) at Maryland and an accomplished author, will discuss the impact George Floyd’s death and other violent police-involved events that followed have had on the significant shift in public opinion of racism within law enforcement and views on proper evaluation of force and proposed reforms.

Ray will share the lab’s findings on how “structural implicit bias” contributes to racial disparities in policing and that police reforms focused on implicit bias trainings and body-worn cameras fall short due to many factors. Ray will conclude the lecture detailing a series of evidence-based policy prescriptions that focus on reallocating and shifting funding within police department budgets and innovative trainings using virtual reality technology that can help transform policing in America.

To read more about Ray, the full lecture abstract and to register for the webinar, visit the Africana Studies: Renewing the Fight for Justice Webinar Series webpage.