Transportation Justice: How Infrastructure Can Divide and Unite
The U.S. economy depends on transportation infrastructure—roads, highways, airports, subways—to keep it afloat. And for many years, Americans have been frustrated by the nation’s dangerous potholes, aging bridges, and unaffordable rail projects.
As politicians turn to fixing these problems, acclaimed NYU Law legal scholar and ACLU president Deborah Archer urges us to examine the role that transportation infrastructure plays in racial segregation, isolation, and exclusion. For decades, government officials have used such infrastructure to keep Americans divided, as by building multi-lane roads with no pedestrian crossings along the border of wealthy white neighborhoods to make it hard for people from low-income communities to visit, or by refusing to extend sidewalks from Black communities into white ones.
Join Professor Archer for a discussion of her new book Dividing Lines: How Transportation Infrastructure Reinforces Racial Inequality with Kenji Yoshino, Chief Justice Earl Warren Professor of Constitutional Law and Director of the Meltzer Center for Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging. As the nation repairs its crumbling infrastructure, Professor Archer’s call for “transportation justice” is an urgent and necessary one to heed.
Attendees of this event will automatically enter a raffle to receive a copy of Professor Archer’s book. This event is part of the Meltzer Center for Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging speaker series and is cosponsored by the Birnbaum Women’s Leadership Center and the Center on Race, Inequality, and the Law. View the list of our speaker series' sponsors.
**Note on Accessibility: This virtual event requires an Internet connection and computer or smartphone. All audio will be Closed Captioned. For any questions, please email Mindy.darwish@Nyu.edu at least 72 hours prior to the event.**