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Friday, March 29, 2024

The Levin College of Law will host two events to commemorate and discuss the issues surrounding the 2012 shooting of Trayvon Martin.

The events are co-sponsored by the college’s Center on Children and Families and Center for the Study of Race & Race Relations.

The first event, “Looking Back, Moving Forward,” will be a town hall-style open forum, said Nancy Dowd, director of the CCF.

The event will take place Wednesday from 6 to 8 p.m. in the UF Law Chesterfield Smith Memorial Classroom, HOL 180.

The purpose of this event is “to give an opportunity for a free flow of discourse about Trayvon Martin,” she said.

“We hope for high school and college students who are closest to the circumstances of Trayvon Martin to discuss their feelings, fears and what changes they would like to happen,” Dowd said.

The second event will be centered on an academic lecture from Duke University sociology professor Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, followed by discussion with a panel of experts.

The lecture will be Feb. 13 from 6 to 8 p.m. in HOL 180.

Anju Kaduvettoor Davidson, assistant director of the CSRRR, said that Bonilla-Silva’s lecture would focus on topics like implicit racism and colorblind racism and how these issues apply to the Trayvon Martin case.

Kristin Babik, a 20-year-old UF psychology and criminology junior, said she believes these events will shed light on how to decrease the spread of racism in the community.

“Racism still occurs, and it is our duty as a society to try to make the world a better place and to understand why bad things like Trayvon Martin’s death happen and then to prevent them from happening,” Babik said.

Dowd said the CCF got involved this year specifically to give families in the community a chance to voice any concerns that spawned from the Trayvon Martin case.

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“Our greatest goal is that people feel they’ve been heard,” she said.

[A version of this story ran on page 5 on 2/4/2014 under the headline "Law school events to discuss Trayvon Martin’s shooting"]

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