Justice Speaks and WWU’s Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies Program to Host ‘School-Prison Nexus’ Feb. 22 and Feb. 23

BELLINGHAM — Erica Meiners, professor of Education and Women’s and Gender Studies at Northeastern Illinois University and Sabina Vaught, professor and Chair of the Department of Education and director of Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies at Tufts University, will present “School-Prison Nexus: Building Freedom, Resistance, and Communities” at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 22 in Fraser Hall 102. They will also be part of a panel at the Bellingham City Council Chambers on Friday, Feb. 23 at 5 p.m.

Both events are free and open to the public.

“School-Prison Nexus: Building Freedom, Resistance, and Communities” will discuss dismantling the school-to-prison pipeline; racial, gendered, and sexualized criminalization; the practices of building freedom; and the processes of resisting and challenging carceral violence. This presentation is a collaboration of “Justice Speaks,” which has taken on the important role of facilitating and exploring topics and questions around social justice.

Meiners is the author of numerous books including “For the Children? Protecting Innocence in a Carceral State” and “The Right to be Hostile: Schools, Prisons and the Making of Public Enemies.” Vaught also has a forthcoming book, “Education and the Dispossession of Youth in a Juvenile Prison School.” Meiners and Vaught are leading scholars of the school-to-prison pipeline/nexus, feminism and sexuality, and transformative justice.

For more information about the events, please contact: Vicki Hsueh, director of Western’s Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at vicki.hsueh@wwu.edu.