Defenders, BLSA, and PILS welcome Professor Vida Johnson, associate professor of law at Georgetown University and author of “KKK in the PD: White Supremacist Police and What to Do About It.” Professor Johnson holds a B.A. in American History from the University of California, Berkeley, and a J.D. from New York University Law School. After law school, Professor Johnson served as an E. Barrett Prettyman fellow at Georgetown University Law Center where she represented indigent adults in the D.C. Superior Court and supervised students in the Criminal Justice Clinic. She then went on to work as a supervising attorney in the Trial Division at the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia (PDS), where she worked for eight years. In that role, she was assigned to the most serious cases at the “Felony One” level, representing indigent clients facing charges including homicide, sexual assault, and armed offenses. Professor Johnson will be discussing her scholarship and public defense work. 

This event is being sponsored as part of Diversity Month.

This convening is open to all invitees who are compliant with UChicago vaccination requirements and, because of ongoing health risks, particularly to the unvaccinated, participants are expected to adopt the risk mitigation measures (masking and social distancing, etc.) appropriate to their vaccination status as advised by public health officials or to their individual vulnerabilities as advised by a medical professional. Public convening may not be safe for all and carries a risk for contracting COVID-19, particularly for those unvaccinated. Participants will not know the vaccination status of others and should follow appropriate risk mitigation measures.