Agenda

Coffee & Check-in

Berkeley Way West Atrium
2121 Berkeley Way, Berkeley, CA 94704

Welcome Address

Osagie K. Obasogie
Haas Distinguished Chair and Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law and Professor of Bioethics, UCB-UCSF Joint Medical Program, Community Health Sciences

Michele Pridmore Brown 
Science Editor at the Los Angeles Review of Books, Research Scholar at the Center for Science, Technology, Medicine and Society at the University of California, Berkeley

Michael Lu 
Dean, University of California, Berkeley School of Public Health

Morning Keynote

Evelynn Hammonds
Barbara Gutmann Rosenkrantz Professor of the History of Science Professor of African and African American Studies & Professor in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences, T. Chan School of Public Health

Panel 1: Eugenics’ Persistence

We begin our panels with a discussion of how eugenics gained traction in the early 20th century and  the mechanisms through which it became  entrenched in modern life despite postwar assumptions that it had been discredited. 

Panelists:

Michael Rossi
Associate Professor of the History of Medicine, Chair, Conceptual and Historical Studies of Science, University of Chicago

Alex Stern
Humanities Dean, Professor of English and History, Institute for Society and Genetics, University of California, Los Angeles

Jenny Reardon
Professor of Sociology and the Founding Director of the Science and Justice Research Center at the University of California, Santa Cruz

Jessica Riskin 
Frances and Charles Field Professor of History, Stanford University

Moderators: 

Osagie K. Obasogie 
Haas Distinguished Chair and Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law and Professor of Bioethics, UCB-UCSF Joint Medical Program, Community Health Sciences

Margaret Eby
Postdoctoral Fellow, Medical Ethics and Health Policy, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania 

Panel 2: Methodological Considerations

Building on the history and prominence of eugenic thinking, this conversation explores how many aspects of modern quantitative methods were developed by eugenicists for eugenic purposes and discusses the significance of scientists' continued use of these tools.

Panelists:

Aubrey Clayton
Mathematician and researcher teaching the philosophy of probability and statistics at the Harvard Extension School

Jay Kaufman
Professor of Epidemiology, Biostatistics, & Occupational Health, McGill University

Lily Hu
Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Yale University

Emily Klancher Merchant
Associate Professor of Science and Technology Studies, University of California, Davis

Moderator:

Corinne ​Riddell
Associate adjunct professor of Biostatistics, UC Berkeley School of Public Health

Lunch

A Conversation with Troy Duster (pre-recorded video presentation)

Troy Duster
Professor Emeritus of Sociology, University of California, Berkeley

Duana Fullwiley
Professor of Anthropology, Stanford University

Panel 3: Crime & Punishment 

Eugenics suggests biological factors behind behavior classified as deviant, antisocial, or criminal. This dialogue traces the effects of this false equivalence on carceral and state structures. 

Panelists:

Terence Keel
Professor, Department of African American Studies and the University of California Los Angeles Institute for Society & Genetics

Oliver Rollins
Old Dominion Career Development Professor and Associate Professor of Science, Technology, and Society (STS) at Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Aaron Panofsky
Director of and a Professor in the Institute for Society and Genetics and Professor in Public Policy, and Sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles

Jennifer James
Associate Professor, Institute for Health & Aging at the University of California, San Francisco, School of Nursing

Moderator:

Erin Kerrison
Associate Professor in the School of Social Welfare at the University of California, Berkeley

Afternoon Keynote

Dorothy Roberts  
George A. Weiss University Professor of Law and Sociology and the Raymond Pace and Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander Professor of Civil Rights at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School

Closing

Reception in Berkeley Way West Atrium 

Opening Reflections

Morning Keynote 

Michele Goodwin
Linda D. & Timothy J. O’Neill Professor of Constitutional Law and Global Health Policy, Georgetown Law

Panel 4: Reproduction, Disability

Much of eugenics past and present has centered the reproductive process as a site of intervention, either by encouraging the production of the “right” kind of child while discouraging the “wrong” kind. Here we engage with the entwined legacies of eugenics across disability and reproduction as they persist into the 21st century.

Panelists:

Marcy Darnovsky
Author and policy advocate

Katie Hasson
Executive Director, Center for Genetics and Society

Rosemarie Garland Thompson
Professor Emerita of English and Bioethics, Emory University

Eric Stanley
Haas Distinguished Chair in LGBT Equity and an associate professor in the Department of Gender and Women’s Studies at the University of California, Berkeley

Moderator:

Karen Nakamura
Haas Distinguished Chair of Disability Studies and Professor of Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley

Panel 5: Eugenics and the Academy

How does eugenics continue to structure research, teaching, and broader conversations? 

Panelists:

Dan HoSang
Professor of American Studies, Yale University

Milton Reynolds
Career educator, author, equity and inclusion consultant, activist

Helena Hansen
Professor and Interim Chair of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, UCLA School of Medicine, Interim Director of the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior

Julie Harris-Wai
Professor, Institute for Health & Aging, University of California San Francisco School of Nursing

Moderator:

Tina Sacks
Associate professor in the School of Social Welfare at the University of California, Berkeley.

Closing Keynote

Ruha Benjamin
Alexander Stewart 1886 Professor of African American studies at Princeton University

End of Conference