Occurring Friday evening, October 25, 2019 as part of the Kent State conference: “Commemorating Violent Conflicts and Building Sustainable Peace”

Location: Ballroom of the Kent State University Hotel and Conference Center
Time: Friday, October 25, 7:30 – 9:30 pm.

How can it happen that children and teens sometimes find themselves looking up the barrels of their own governments' guns? The May 4 shootings shocked the United States, but it was hardly unique. This group of discussants brings together scholars and analysts who have worked on police and military violence against youth and people who, as youths, have been the target of this violence. We will use a fishbowl discussion format to engage in a lively discussion to consider the causes and consequences of this surprisingly common form of state violence, and ways to reduce it.

Fishbowl Discussants:

Ms. Christine Nobiss

Christine Nobiss is a Plains Cree-Salteaux from the George Gordon First Nation in Saskatchewan. She has a master’s degree in Religious Studies with a Native American focus and a minor in Native American studies from the University of Iowa. She is the founder and co-chair of Indigenous Iowa. Indigenous youth were at the forefront of the 2016-17 protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline near the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in North Dakota, for which they endured significant violence from the state. Their decision to run thousands of miles (“Run For our Water”) to speak with officials in Washington, D.C. helped inspire thousands of other people to join the protest and bring widespread attention to issues related to environmental justice and indigenous land rights. Standing Rock youth have continued to reflect on the life-changing experience and transformative nature of standing up for what you believe.

Dr. Thomas Grace

A 1972 graduate of Kent State University, Thomas Grace was one of the wounded students on May 4, 1970. He earned a PhD in history from SUNY Buffalo after many years as a social worker and union representative and is an adjunct professor of history at Erie Community College. His research focuses on dissent and the protest movements in the 1960s. Grace is the author of Kent State: Death and Dissent in the Long Sixties (University of Massachusetts Press, 2016). He brings a unique perspective as a history scholar and student wounded at Kent State to contextualizing May 4 in its times.

Dr. Tony Gaskew

Tony Gaskew, Ph.D., is a professor of Criminal Justice at the University of Pittsburgh Bradford. He has over twenty years of policing experience and in 2001 he received the Region IV Florida Narcotic Officer of the Year award. He is founding director of the Prison Education Program where he has created groundbreaking post-secondary education initiatives in prisons since 2007. As a critical ethnographer, his research focuses on the relationship between policing and the Black experience in the U.S., decolonizing and dismantling justice systems, and the intersecting metaphysical nature of creating a Black resistance consciousness. His most recent book, Rethinking Prison Reentry: Transforming Humiliation into Humility, (Lexington Publishers, 2016) examines his attempts to inspire a resistance consciousness within Black incarcerated students. In 2016 Tony Gaskew was invited to the White House by the Obama administration along with ten other educators from across the nation to lead discussions on criminal justice reform and higher education inside prisons.

Ms. Sibley Hawkins

Sibley Hawkins has been a program officer at the International Center for Transitional Justice since 2014, focusing primarily on gender justice and truth seeking in Côte d’Ivoire, Nepal, Syria, and Tunisia and elsewhere. Through research and engagement with victims’ groups, she strives to change the narrative about how women and victims of gender-based violations are perceived. Recently, she has been examining the role of unofficial truth seeking in highlighting victim’s voices and experiences where “official” processes are either non-existent or ineffective. Ms. Hawkins helped develop ICTJ’s gender mainstreaming policy and has conducted workshops with civil society on implementing a gender-sensitive approach. Before joining ICTJ, she focused on the rights of persons with disabilities. She holds a B.A. from the University of Texas at Austin and a master’s degree in Human Rights and International Law from New York University. She has lived in Colombia and Spain and is fluent in Spanish. She loves performing with her all-female improv group Butterfly Kisses.