Africana Studies

‘Black Families Matter’

In a lecture organized by the Penn Program on Regulation, PIK Professor Dorothy E. Roberts argued that the U.S. child welfare system is designed to police Black families, not to protect children, and must be abolished and replaced with a new vision of family support and child safety.

Kristen de Groot

Understanding civic engagement

In the latest episode of Penn Today’s ‘Understand This …’ podcast series, Herman Beavers of the School of Arts & Sciences and Glenn Bryan of the Office of Government and Community Affairs discuss civic engagement—and jazz.

Brandon Baker

National myths and monuments

Season two, episode four, of the OMNIA podcast “In These Times” features three faculty discussing the movement to reexamine monuments and the history and myths they symbolize, and how the public should think about the artworks in public squares.

The world according to Walter Palmer

The educator, organizer, and alumnus discusses his six decades of activism, growing up in the Black Bottom, studying and teaching at Penn, his work at CHOP, the student strike of 1967, the Vietnam War, Frank Rizzo, Donald Trump, school choice, gun violence, the Chauvin trial, and why he thinks racism should be declared a national public health crisis.

Greg Johnson

In These Times: Black lives and the call for justice

The first two episodes of the Omnia podcast’s second season discuss the Black Lives Matter movement and the lasting impact of slavery and colonialism on the laws and policies that have governed Black lives throughout history.



Media Contact


In the News


Ms. Magazine

Torn Apart: Terror

PIK Professor Dorothy Roberts describes the horrors that the child welfare system inflicts by invading homes, targeting low-income families, and threatening to separate parents and children.

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Chicago Sun-Times

Race-based medicine is not the solution to health disparities

PIK Professor Dorothy Roberts says that race is a social category affected by inequality, not a biological category that naturally produces health disparities.

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CBS News

Emmett Till and his mother to be honored with national monument

Brent Leggs of the Weitzman School of Design discusses the physical and societal landscape surrounding Emmett Till’s murder in 1955.

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Associated Press

For Emmett Till’s family, national monument proclamation cements his inclusion in the American story

Brent Leggs of the Weitzman School of Design says that the designation of a national monument honoring Emmett Till represents a milestone in the effort to preserve and protect places tied to wounds in American history.

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Forbes

Black Harvard and Princeton students graduate at higher rates than classmates overall, equally at Yale

Brian Peterson of the School of Arts & Sciences says that Black students are aware they’re representing more than themselves at highly selective academic institutions.

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Associated Press

How and when to remove children from their homes? A federal lawsuit raises thorny questions

PIK Professor Dorothy Roberts explains why the child welfare system can be particularly risky for Black and Indigenous families.

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