Past Events

This program will only be offered online. 1.0 hour Indiana CLE (Distance Education) credit will be available but you must register for the Zoom Webinar using the link below. Following registration, you will receive an email with a link to join the Webinar.

Ensure you are joining the webinar from the Zoom application (desktop or mobile) to enable participation in the polling throughout the webinar for CLE credit. Please note joining the webinar from a web browser is not compatible and doing so will result in not receiving CLE credit.

E-mail certificates will be provided certifying attendance for those wishing to apply for CLE credit outside of Indiana.

Registration link: https://iu.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_vuhyEiE3TJmTdnNTruzzuA

Description:

This presentation will explore the history of the war on drugs, beginning with a focus on the sentencing laws that operated as a warfare model designed to punish crack cocaine offenders.  The presentation will highlight the current shift in understanding about substance use disorder and will advocate for drug sentencing as a whole to be reconceptualized from use as a weapon – designed to destroy - to having a public health and welfare purpose. 

Presentation Slides     Event Recording

Biography:

Jelani Jefferson Exum, Philip J. McElroy Professor of Law, became Dean at the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law in July 2021.  She is a nationally recognized expert in sentencing law and procedure and is a member of the Editorial Board of the Federal Sentencing Reporter. Dean Jefferson Exum is a graduate of Harvard Law School and Harvard College.  Before joining academia, she served as a law clerk for the Honorable James L. Dennis, United States Circuit Judge for the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, and the Honorable Eldon E. Fallon, United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Louisiana.  Prior to joining the Detroit Mercy Law faculty in 2019, she was a professor and Associate Dean for Diversity and Inclusion at the University of Toledo College of Law, an associate professor at the University of Kansas School of Law, and a visiting associate professor at the University of Michigan Law School. Dean Jefferson Exum has also been a Forrester Fellow and Instructor in Legal Writing at Tulane Law School.  She has taught Constitutional Law, Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure, Sentencing, and Race and American Law, and has also taught Comparative Criminal Procedure. She writes mainly in the areas of federal sentencing and policing, with a focus on racial justice.