Is Prison the New Jim Crow?: Featured Guest Bios

Is mass incarceration a new form of Jim Crow? Why does the clock seem to be turning back, keeping some Americans subordinate? How are we all affected, and what can we do about it?

Explore these issues and more at the opening of the spring season for Salons at Stowe on Thursday, April 26, from 5-7 p.m. Join the discussion with our guests, Dr. Bilal Sekou, University of Hartford and Dr. Kaaryn Gustafson, UConn School of Law, as we look at these questions.
Kaaryn Gustafson, Professor of Law. University of Connecticut School of Law

Kaaryn Gustafson, who joined the law faculty in 2004, has extensive knowledge of the nation's welfare system, and how rules and regulations actually function in practice. Her research focuses on law and inequality and draws heavily upon both empirical research and critical theory. She has authored a book, Cheating Welfare , that challenges readers to question their assumptions about welfare policies, about welfare recipients, and about crime control policies in the United States. In addition to her academic writing, Gustafson has co-authored (with Linda Burnham) a report to the United Nations on U.S. government policy toward poor women and children and a number of Op-Eds.

Dr. Bilal Sekou, Professor of Political Science. University of Hartford

Bilal Dabir Sekou's research interests are race and politics, urban politics, and campaigns, elections, and voting behavior. He has published articles on social and political participation by African Americans and public attitudes toward quality and integrated education in Connecticut. Professor Sekou was born in Detroit, Michigan, receiving his high school diploma in 1984 from Murray Wright High School. He received a BS in public administration and governmental economics in 1988 from Eastern Michigan University, and earned his Ph.D. in political science in 1995 from The Ohio State University. He has been teaching at the University of Hartford since the summer of 2002. A social and racial justice scholar-activist, Sekou sits on the Board of Directors of several organizations working to promote social and political change, including Connecticut Citizen Action Group, Connecticut Center For A New Economy, and Common Cause Connecticut.