News & Events: Delaware

Widener Law celebrates Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy

Public Relations - Published: January 8, 2008

The Delaware campus of Widener University School of Law will celebrate the 2008 Martin Luther King Jr. holiday with a program Thursday, Jan. 10 from noon to 2 p.m.

The public is invited to join the students, staff and faculty for a panel discussion that explores the question of what Dr. King would say and do about the Jena Six incident in Jena, La. The program will take place in the Ruby R. Vale Moot Courtroom.

Panelists will include:

Wadud Ahmad, former Philadelphia assistant district attorney, now practicing with Cauley, Ahmad, & Zaffarese LLC
Robert Listenbee, chief of the Defender Association of Philadelphia, juvenile unit
J. Whyatt Mondesire, president of the NAACP Philadelphia Branch and a member of the NAACP national board of directors.

The Jena Six refers to a group of six African-American teens who were arrested in connection with the beating of a white classmate in December 2006 at Jena High School in Jena, La. The incident came on the heels of a number of racially-charged incidents, including a situation where white students hung nooses from a tree known to be a white-student hangout, after an African-American student asked about sitting under it. The white students were not criminally prosecuted. The Jena six case caused a firestorm of controversy in the way the African American teens were charged – with counts of attempted murder – and it sparked protests by those who viewed the arrests and charges as excessive and discriminatory. In response, tens of thousands of protestors marched on Jena and in demonstrations around the nation on Sept. 20.

Harrisburg Campus:
3800 Vartan Way
P.O. Box 69380
Harrisburg, PA 17106-9380
CAMPUS PHONE NUMBERS:
ADMISSIONS: 717.541.3903
MAIN: 717.541.3900
LIBRARY: 717.541.3933
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Delaware Campus:
4601 Concord Pike
P.O. Box 7474
Wilmington, DE 19803
CAMPUS PHONE NUMBERS:
ADMISSIONS 302.477.2703
MAIN: 302.477.2100
LIBRARY: 302.477.2244
Delaware Directions

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