Melissa Harris-Perry, MSNBC television host, political commentator, award-winning writer, and professor, will headline this year’s Constitution Day. The panel, moderated by WYPR’s The Signalproducer and MICA faculty member Aaron Henkin, will also include Reggie Shuford, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, and artist Titus Kaphar, whose artworks interact with the history of art by appropriating its styles and mediums. The event is titledBlack Lives Matter: Structural Racism in 21st-Century America.

The 2015 symposium explores the various facets of “Black Lives Matter,” a phrase exposing the enduring legacy of racial disparities, particularly in the criminal justice system in America. Noting recent scandals of police brutality and misconduct, and subsequent protests and national dialogue, panelists will discuss different analyses, approaches, and strategies for understanding and challenging systemic racism in America.

“In light of the racial disparities exposed in the police violence and related turmoil in Ferguson and Staten Island last year, and in Baltimore this spring, I cannot think of a more urgent and timely topic for our panelists to discuss,” said Constitution Day organizer and MICA Humanistic Studies Department faculty member Firmin DeBrabander. He added, “What point will be the turning point that transforms policy, law, and culture into institutions that respect the dignity and lives of all Americans?”

“The topic of this year’s Constitution Day event is both timely and pressing: As a country we must work with urgency and determination to dismantle structural racial bias and its far-reaching, entrenched effects,” said Susan Goering, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland (ACLU-MD). “The tragedy of Freddie Gray’s death in Baltimore, and the death of so many others, flows from the failed, racially biased ‘War on Drugs’ and the militarization of police departments. Yet police abuse is only a piece of larger systemic violence—in the form of discrimination in housing, education, jobs, and voting rights—that has left Black Americans and other communities of color isolated and marginalized.”

The free annual symposium is co-sponsored by MICA and ACLU-MD.

In addition to free tickets distributed in advance to the MICA and ACLU communities, a limited number of free tickets will be available to the general public starting at 3 pm on the day of the event.

Image: Melissa Harris-Perry (photo credit: Ken Bennett, Wake Forest University).