This Podcast featured Associate Professor and Associate Dean Tiffany C. Graham regarding her role on the New York State Advisory Committee (“Committee”) to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights (“Commission”). Professor Zablotsky moderated this podcast, where he asked Professor Graham questions about her role and work on the Committee, which led to a discussion of the racial disparities that Black families face in the child welfare system. Professor Graham started her discussion of her journey to academia, which occurred when she realized quickly private practice was not her passion but rather, she wished to join a student environment. Professor Graham taught in California, Pennsylvania, South Dakota and now is teaching in New York. When in South Dakota, she was a faculty member and the Associate Dean of Academic Affairs at the University of South Dakota School of Law.  Throughout her time in that state, she had the ability to work on various civil rights issues, in particular those related to matters impacting the LGBTQIA+ community.  While there, she also served as the chair of the South Dakota Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, where she was leading a project focused on maternal mortality rates for Native American women before resigning to take her current  position at Touro Law Center, which was followed by a recommendation to take a spot on the New York advisory committee. 

When she first joined the New York Committee, it decided to study racial disparities in eviction. Most recently, the Committee has been focusing on racial disparities in the foster care system.  Professor Graham noted the importance of looking at the problems in the child welfare system that exist in New York City – where they are acute – as well as throughout the state to fully understand the situation. She was clear and concise about one of the biggest obstacles that Black families face — they are often subjected to over-surveillance under harsh circumstances that derive from implicit and explicit biases. She then laid out the empirical information that the Committee learned from the witnesses who testified before them. Finally, Professor Graham spoke about the major pushback on the discrimination issues and that these problems were not created overnight. Rather, they were created throughout the centuries. She urged that, even though we have made great strides in eliminating discriminatory practices, society must continue to work on eliminating the structural inequalities that impact our institutions to ensure that they do not reproduce the harms of inequality that have existed in our communities. Professor Graham ended the podcast by asking listeners to pay attention and try to become aware of what is happening under the surface that we may not necessarily see but nonetheless exist. 

Professor Graham expects the Committee’s Report to be released at some point next year.

Brought to you by the Touro Law Review.   

Our guest today is Associate Professor and Associate Dean Tiffany C. Graham.

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