{"id":1940,"date":"2018-11-02T11:42:54","date_gmt":"2018-11-02T15:42:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/?p=1940"},"modified":"2018-11-02T11:42:54","modified_gmt":"2018-11-02T15:42:54","slug":"social-justice-lecture-series-brings-author-expert-to-law-campus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/2018\/11\/02\/social-justice-lecture-series-brings-author-expert-to-law-campus\/","title":{"rendered":"Social justice lecture series brings author, expert to Law campus"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Paul
Paul Butler, right, addresses an audience of Detroit leaders, students and members of the area’s law community.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As a Washington, D.C. prosecutor, Paul Butler started every case he tried with the same statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would say, \u2018My name is Paul Butler, and I represent the people.\u2019 I represented the government in criminal court,\u201d Butler said, \u201cand I used that power to put black men in prison. And black women. And Latinx people. And poor people. As a prosecutor, that\u2019s pretty much all I did.\u201d<\/p>\n

Butler said he went into the prosecutor\u2019s office as an \u2018Undercover Brother\u2019 \u2013 someone trying to change the system from within.<\/p>\n

\u201cThrough the time that I did that work, I learned some things,\u201d he said, \u201cMy book, Chokehold: Policing Black Men, <\/em>is about what I learned.\u201d<\/p>\n

Butler, now a professor of law at Georgetown University, shared his experience and insight Oct. 22 at the inaugural Dewitt C. Holbrook Lecture on Social Justice at University of Detroit Mercy School of Law. Butler researches and teaches in the areas of criminal law, race relations law, and critical theory. His research has been published in many leading scholarly journals, including the Yale Law Journal<\/em>, the Harvard Law Review<\/em>, the Stanford Law Review<\/em>, and the UCLA Law Review.<\/em><\/p>\n

Butler discussed his Jesuit education as a source of inspiration, saying, \u201cI have always been inspired by the messages of leading by example, \u2018men and women for others,\u2019 and especially a commitment to social justice,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s what I want to talk about: what social justice means in the context of black men and the police.\u201d<\/p>\n

The lessons he learned as prosecutor led him into academia as a researcher, and ultimately to the writing of his book, Chokehold, <\/em>which last year was named a Notable Book by the Washington Post and among the best books of the year by Kirkus Reviews. In the book, Butler points out what he calls four thematic frames around discussions of black men and policing.<\/p>\n

The first, he said, is the cultural-behavioral model, which supposes that the problems begin with black men.<\/p>\n

The second is that under-enforcement of the law is the actual problem. \u201cThe conservative point of view,\u201d he said, \u201cis that there is a lack of law and order in the black community. This is what the president thinks, this is what the attorney general thinks: that the problem isn\u2019t too much policing, but\u2026not enough policing.\u201d<\/p>\n

The third frame \u2014 police and community relations \u2014 Butler sees as a more liberal-progressive one. \u201c[It\u2019s the belief that] we have to get to understand each other better, that we should better appreciate what\u2019s going on with the other side for better relationships to develop,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The fourth frame Butler shared from his book is one he called radical. Those who subscribe to it see the criminal-legal system as tools of white supremacy and social control.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome people say that it\u2019s brothers ourselves,\u201d Butler said. \u201cThat it\u2019s the way we perform masculinity, that if we would \u2018just pull up our pants,\u2019 we wouldn\u2019t have to worry about being stopped and frisked or shot by police.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGroups like the Movement for Black Lives say that, if we just work on the police you\u2019re treating the symptom rather than the disease,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Following his lecture, Butler took questions from the audience. A law student asked Butler when was his \u201cPaul on the Road to Damascus\u201d moment, when he came to see himself as part of the problem.<\/p>\n

There was not just one moment, Butler said, but he recalled his arrest for an unnamed offense, and his trial in the same courtroom where he worked as a prosecutor.<\/p>\n

\u201cI won\u2019t go into all the details,\u201d he said, \u201cbut I hired the best lawyer in town, and I was innocent, which is why it worked out for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another attendee, a judge and ex-prosecutor, asked if Butler meant Black Americans shouldn\u2019t represent themselves in the system. \u201cI was a prosecutor and never felt the way you do,\u201d the judge said.<\/p>\n

Butler said the issue must be addressed in a multitude of ways, and that changes won\u2019t come from the inside.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like joining the Army because you\u2019re against the war,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The DeWitt C. Holbrook Lecture on Social Justice, which will be held annually at Detroit Mercy Law, will provide prominent leaders in the legal profession a forum to address issues on law and policy related to social justice.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were delighted to host Professor Paul Butler as the inaugural speaker of our Holbrook Lecture Series on Social Justice. He delivered a thought-provoking lecture, and it was great to see so many Detroit community leaders, professors, and law students attend and engage in the conversation,\u201d said Detroit Mercy Law Dean Phyllis L. Crocker, \u201cWe look forward to continuing to inspire dialogue on social justice issues through this lecture series in the years to come.\u201d<\/p>\n

By Patrick Andrzejczyk<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As a Washington, D.C. prosecutor, Paul Butler started every case he tried with the same statement. \u201cI would say, \u2018My name is Paul Butler, and I represent the people.\u2019 I represented the government in criminal court,\u201d Butler said, \u201cand I used that power to put black men in prison. And …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":66,"featured_media":1942,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[23,8],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/88\/2018\/11\/butler-talk-featured.jpg?fit=4531%2C2379&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8Kcng-vi","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1940"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/66"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1940"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1940\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1943,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1940\/revisions\/1943"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.udmercy.edu\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}