Videos

Imprisoning Disability: Using CRT & DisCrit to Abolish the Carceral State Critical Race Theory (CRT) has been a guiding principle in our work and how we think, teach, and transform communities. Alongside its intellectual sibling, DisCrit, we’ve deployed these frameworks in our scholarship, teaching, client advocacy, and policy work. The authors have worked for over thirty years as scholar-activists and advocates representing youth in delinquency and education proceedings. This panel will explore how CRT and DisCrit animate our advocacy, with concrete examples in the areas of dis/ability, education, and anti-racist, anti-prison work. Attendees will leave with practical tools and ideas for applying CRT and DisCrit in their studies, scholarship, and advocacy. Subini Annamma will share how DisCrit was developed as a sibling to Critical Race Theory, similar to LatCrit and TribalCrit, and its unique affordances in advocacy, scholarship, policy, and teaching. She will share the findings of her most recent work with incarcerated youth across eight states. Jamelia Morgan will share how she has employed a DisCrit lens to examine the ways in which legal doctrine and everyday police practices work together to render disabled people— particularly those at the intersection of race and disability—uniquely vulnerable to police violence. Jyoti Nanda will describe how CRT and DisCrit shape her research on carceral spaces, including a current study of 200 closed case files to trace pathways for girls and gender-expansive pregnant youth into the youth carceral system. Vivian Wong will discuss how she reframes the school-to-prison-pipeline as a nexus of criminalization in schools, drawing from her youth client work, local policy efforts, and statewide legislative advocacy. • Subini Ancy Annamma, Associate Professor, Stanford University • Jamelia Morgan, Professor of Law, Northwestern Pritzker School of Law • Jyoti Nanda, Professor of Law, Southwestern Law School • Vivian Wong, Director and Visiting Associate Clinical Professor, Youth Justice Education Clinic at the Center for Juvenile Law and Policy, LMU Loyola Law School, UCLA Law JD ‘17

This short video, by CRDJ intern Mary Yoon, introduces DisCrit (Disability Critical Race Theory), a framework that explores how racism and ableism intersect to shape systems of power that marginalize disabled people of color. Grounded in disability studies and critical race theory, the video outlines DisCrit’s seven core tenets and how they guide efforts toward racial and disability justice.

Eric Miller, Prianka Nair, and Jamelia Morgan addressed the backlash to civil rights, exploring the cases for reparations that redress harms to groups with histories of oppression, including those at the intersection of race and disability. https://www.crdjustice.org/

Led by Professor Jamelia Morgan, the Northwestern Pritzker Law Center for Racial and Disability Justice (CRDJ) is a first-of-its-kind center dedicated to promoting justice for people of color, people with disabilities, and individuals at the intersection of race and disability.

On Thursday April 17, 2025, NDLPA held the next event in its Career Exploration Series on navigating legal academia with a disability. Moderator: AJ Link, President, Board of Directors, National Disabled Legal Professionals Association and Adjunct Professor, Space Law, Howard University School of Law Panelists: Katie Eyer, Professor of Law, Rutgers Law School Professor Katherine Macfarlane, Director, Disability Law & Policy Program, Syracuse University College of Law Jamelia N. Morgan, Professor of Law at Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law and Founding Faculty Director of the Center for Racial and Disability Justice Britney Wilson, Associate Professor of Law, Director, Civil Rights and Disability Justice Clinic, New York Law School

This session explores the intersection of disability data justice, artificial intelligence, and global technology. This panel features diverse perspectives on disability data to discuss how inclusive AI can drive equitable data practices worldwide, ensuring that technological advancements benefit all. Speakers include Kate Caldwell, Director of Research & Policy at the Center for Racial & Disability Justice, Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law, Elizabeth Lockwood, Charlotte McClain-Nhlapo, Global Disability Advisor of the World Bank Group, Rylin Rodgers, Disability Policy Director at Microsoft, and Bonnielin Swenor, Director of The Johns Hopkins Disability Health Research Center.

Recording of the Understanding Disability Criminalization panel that was held both virtually via Zoom and in person at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law on October 2, 2024 from 12 pm CT to 1 pm CT. The panel was hosted by Northwestern Law's Center for Racial and Disability Justice. The goal of this panel was to examine the contours of disability criminalization within and beyond traditional carceral spaces, like prisons and jails, and identify proposals for transformative change. Panel Moderator: Jamelia Morgan (Faculty Director, Center for Racial and Disability Justice; Professor, Northwestern Pritzker School of Law) Panelists: Linda Steele (Associate Professor, Law Health Justice, University of Technology Sydney) and Liat Ben-Moshe (Associate Professor, Criminology, Law and Justice, University of Illinois Chicago)

Recording of the Politics of Psychiatric Reinstitutionalization panel that was held virtually on March 27, 2024 from 12 pm CT to 1:15 pm CT. The panel was hosted by Northwestern Pritzker School of Law's Center for Racial and Disability Justice. The goal of this virtual panel was to discuss reinstitutionalization under the guise of recent policy efforts to force and coerce people with psychiatric disabilities and unhoused folks into “treatment” and hospitalization. Panel Moderator: Jordyn Jensen (Executive Director, Center for Racial and Disability Justice) Panelists: Luke Sikinyi (Director of Public Policy, Alliance for Rights and Recovery), Andrea Wagner (Managing Member, LaVoy Wagner LLC), and Stefen Short (Supervising Attorney & Director of the Prisoners' Rights Project, The Legal Aid Society)

Jamelia Morgan, Director of the Center for Racial and Disability Justice at Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law, gives two examples of over-policing and violence against people with disabilities and advocates for alternative, disabled-led solutions. View the full recording of the Disability, Policing, and Mass Incarceration webinar: https://disabilityphilanthropy.org/resource/disability-philanthropy-webinar-series-disability-policing-and-mass-incarceration/ View the Disability & Philanthropy Forum's 2023 Learning Series: https://disabilityphilanthropy.org/2023-disability-philanthropy-public-webinar-series/