Antiracist Development Institute holding Third Annual Convening in Carlisle on October 8–10

CARLISLE, Pa.—The Antiracist Development Institute at Penn State Dickinson Law will hold its Third Annual Convening on October 8–10. The three-day collaborative, hands-on event unites people from inside and outside of the legal profession and across the country for three days of learning, teaching, implementing new ideas, and celebrating the love ethic embraced by the ADI.

Registration for the Convening has closed but registration for the event’s continuing legal education courses remains open. Past Convenings have drawn members of the Carlisle and nearby communities, chapter contributors and systems designers for the University of California book series Building an Antiracist Law School, Legal Academy, and Legal Profession book series shepherded by the ADI, members of the Penn State ecosystem, Penn State Dickinson Law staff, faculty, alumni, and students, and many more.

The Convening provides attendees with time to connect and reflect on how they can contribute to the ADI’s efforts to dismantle structures that support systemic racial inequality and intersectional injustice using a three-pillar system based on systems design, institutional antiracism, and critical pedagogy.

“The Convening is a unique and fulfilling opportunity to gather with colleagues from near and far to celebrate our accomplishments, share ideas for future projects, and critically examine the work still to come on antiracism,” said Penn State Dickinson Law Professor of Clinical Law Jill C. Engle, who recently succeeded Dermot Groome as associate director of the ADI. “These Convening events, and the ADI itself, occupy a space in legal and higher education that is truly second to none on the impact of race on law and society.”

“We look forward to programming and hosting this unique event each year,” said ADI Program Manager TaWanda Hunter Stallworth. “We welcomed more than 100 attendees to last year’s Convening. This year, we are excited to once again engage with our colleagues, friends, and community members devoted to fighting for institutional antiracism while embracing love as a value and an ethic in legal education. We cannot wait to catch up with everyone, including our alumni attending this year’s Convening.”

Indeed, Penn State Dickinson Law alumni have embraced the ADI. Many, including Sean Shultz '03, the mayor of Carlisle, and G. Griffith “Griff” Lindsay III ’79, have participated in past Convenings and other ADI events. Lindsay and his wife, Emily, also support ADI efforts like the Convening through the Griff and Emily Lindsay Antiracism and Systemic Equity Program Support Fund. Another alumnus, Romario Ricketts ‘25, will return to Carlisle to moderate a panel at the Convening.

Three cohorts for the Third Annual Convening

The Convening will include three cohorts with separate programming. The Rule of Law cohort is geared toward those in the legal academy and legal profession interested in incorporating antiracist principles into their spaces. The Leadership and Community cohort is best for those outside the legal academy and legal profession who also want to implement antiracist policies in their organizations. And the Antiracist Leadership Certificate will be open to law enforcement professionals working toward obtaining the Antiracist Leadership Certificate.

This year’s Convening will feature two speakers with unique perspectives on the criminal legal system. Kemba Smith Pradia, who will deliver the keynote at the Convening Banquet on October 9, became an advocate for criminal justice reform after serving a nearly seven-year incarceration. Race and criminal justice scholar Paul Butler, the Albert Brick Professor in Law at Georgetown University Law Center, will deliver the October 10 keynote to convention attendees and first-year Penn State Dickinson Law students.

A nonviolent offender sentenced to 24.5 years in federal prison

Smith Pradia’s life and her memoir, Poster Child, inspired the movie Kemba, which will be screened on the first night of the Convening. She was a college student when she began dating a man she learned (much later) was a drug dealer. Though she never sold or used drugs, the federal government charged her with conspiracy to distribute cocaine. Harsh sentencing laws at the time (during the height of the government’s so-called “war on drugs”) resulted in Smith Pradia receiving a 24.5-year prison sentence, even though she was a first-time, nonviolent offender.

She eventually partnered with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund (LDF) on her appeal and secured a commutation in 2000. The LDF notes that the “one-size-fits-all sentence she received ignored important mitigating factors and was wholly disproportionate to her offense. LDF challenged her sentence and, alongside her family, developed a public education campaign to expose the injustice of excessive sentences for individuals with abusive or deprived circumstances.”

Smith Pradia later received a pardon from President Joe Biden and has served as a motivational speaker addressing how mass incarceration harms Black women. As a survivor of domestic abuse, she also speaks to community members about her experience. She believes her story can serve as an educational tool to prevent young people in similar circumstances from taking the same path.

An NAACP Image Award nominee for Chokehold

Butler is also a nationally recognized speaker whose scholarship prompts tough, critical conversations. A former federal prosecutor for the U.S. Department of Justice, Butler has prosecuted law enforcement officials, FBI agents, and even a U.S. Senator.

The Yale University and Harvard Law School graduate published the book Chokehold: Policing Black Men in 2017. It earned a spot on the best books of the year list from Kirkus Reviews, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and Washington Post. The New York Times declared Chokehold the best book about criminal justice reform since The New Jim Crow, and it was a finalist for the NAACP Image Award for best nonfiction.

Butler lectures for the American Bar Association and the NAACP, and his work has appeared in Georgetown Law Journal, Yale Law Journal, Harvard Law Review, Stanford Law Review, and UCLA Law Review. Additionally, the Harry Chapin Media award recipient earned election to the American Law Institute in 2003.

Following Butler’s keynote, he and Smith Pradia will hold a panel discussion along with Kristina Roth, senior policy associate at the LDF, to close out the Convening. Ricketts, who joined the LDF as its inaugural Legal Research and Strategic Communications Fellow following his recent graduation, will moderate.