On August 15, Emily Chiang, a visiting assistant professor of law at the University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law and director of the College’s Civil Rights Clinic, will participate in a post-screening panel discussion of the film Freedom Files: School to Prison Pipeline. The film and discussion, which are free and open to the public, will begin at 6:00 p.m. at the Mestizo Coffee Shop, 641 W. North Temple, in Salt Lake City. The event is sponsored by the ACLU of Utah.
Freedom Files: School to Prison Pipeline focuses on how criminalizing, rather than educating children denies access to education; how zero tolerance policies do not make schools safer; how students of color and those with special needs are disproportionately marginalized; and explores what Utah is doing with these policies.
Chiang describes the problem of the school to prison pipeline as a “hot” issue, and notes that, “The panel will offer an engaging discussion about the critical problem of how our nation’s schools are failing many of our children.” She added that she has worked to address this problem in the past and hopes the Clinic will work on these important education-related issues going forward.
In addition to Chiang, other panelists will include Brenda Valles, a University of Utah Doctoral Candidate in Education, Leadership & Policy currently researching the school to prison pipeline, and Anna Brower, Development Director for ACLU of Utah.