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National and regional news organizations regularly interview Hamilton faculty, staff, alumni, and students for their expertise and perspectives on current events, and to feature programs and activities on campus. October’s news highlights ranged from coverage of the role of luck in career success to the interrelationship between art and science.

Three Hamilton students — Anokhi Manchanda ’22, Cole Kuczek ’23, and Henry Schwob ’22 — are working on summer research projects concerning police and court reforms and a potential human rights commission in the Utica area.

Last fall, the College-Community Partnership for Racial Justice assembled a series of eight webinars focused on racial equity and police reform, sponsored by the Levitt Center Law and Justice Lab. Since then, the Partnership has collected and organized data from multiple surveys aimed at gauging public opinion on these issues. The results of these surveys were discussed in a virtual town hall on Feb. 11.

Hamilton College Professor Doran Larson, Nation of Islam representative Courtney Muhammad, and re-entry educator Lee Carr spoke in a webinar moderated by Mohawk Valley Community College Trustee Tony Colón on Oct. 28. This was the sixth installment of eight webinars in the series “Racial Justice and Criminal Justice Reform in Oneida & Herkimer Counties.”

The Racial Justice and Criminal Justice in Oneida & Herkimer Counties Series continued on Oct. 7 with its third installment titled “Why is Diversity Not Enough?: Training and Best Practices for Policing Reform.”

A new report, released by the Levitt Center in cooperation with Judge Ralph Eannace of Utica City Court and other public officials, offers proof of the broad community benefits to developing, introducing, and sustaining alternative methods of handling individuals with mental illness in the criminal justice system.

Ford will serve as a juror in the U.S. documentary category – one of seven juried categories.

Twelve Hamilton students visited Sweden for a two-week study trip, looking at Swedish prisons, courts and policing practice. Ryan Bloom ’18 blogged about the trip. Following is her final update about a visit to border control, a police precinct and the court.

Few would argue with the assertion that racism unfortunately persists in America. However, some do contest the prevalence of racism in the criminal justice system. Syracuse University Law School Professor Paula Johnson shed some light on the issue in a lecture on Nov. 10. She explained that we see and experience racism not only when police officers use excessive and unjustified force against black individuals, but we see it also in the lack of accountability for these assaults and killings. Johnson traces this pattern of ignoring racist killings to the death of Emmett Till in 1955, whose killers were acquitted of all charges.