PHILADELPHIA -- On Oct. 28-29, the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania will convene "Equity and Race in a Democratic Society," a symposium focusing on the inequality within communities and schools and the inequities in private and public institutions serving minority and poor children and families, social problems that have persisted despite Brown v. Board of Education and the Civil Rights Act.  

The event will be at the Inn at Penn, 3600 Sansom St. in Philadelphia.

In panel discussions and informal conversations, participants will discuss creating and managing K-12 schools and explore the questions that face universities as they work with communities to create successful public schools.

Penn President Amy Gutmann will introduce the public panel session, "Representations of Race in the Media," on Thursday, Oct. 28, at 5 p.m. Featured speakers will be Susan Fuhrman, dean of Penn GSE; Michael Delli Carpini, dean of Penn's Annenberg School for Communication; NBC Dateline producer Aretha Marshall; Annenberg Professor Oscar Gandy; Martin Gilens, professor of politics at Princeton University; and Robert Entman, professor of communications at North Carolina State University.  This panel will be held in the Bodek Lounge, Houston Hall, 3714 Spruce St.

Other highlights of the symposium include "The (In)Significance of Race in a Post-Brown, Post-Civil Rights Era," a panel discussion featuring Penn professors Michael Eric Dyson,  Tukufu Zuberi, and Vivian Gadsden.

Among other topics to be addressed: access and opportunity in higher education, the persistence of the achievement gap, schooling and school reform and race, equity and religion.

More information is available at www.gse.upenn.edu/brown.