These NYU students are getting the wrongly incarcerated out of prison
As exam season approaches, the 15 NYU students taking Making an Exoneree have a different type of final: working to get victims of wrongful conviction out of prison. The class, a four-credit Law and Society elective in the College of Arts & Science, was offered at NYU for the first time this semester in conjunction with a program with the same name created at Georgetown University. The program, which receives hundreds of potential wrongful conviction cases, pairs groups of undergraduate students with their “program participants” to produce a short documentary advocating for their exoneration. Throughout the semester, students not only dive into legal documents surrounding their cases, but also conduct…
Who gets to be represented during AAPI Month?
During Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, you can catch a cultural heritage parade, food festivals and many other community events happening throughout New York City. But take a closer look at these events, and you may notice a lack of representation from certain Asian cultures. First established in 1979 as a week-long commemoration of AAPI culture and people, the celebration expanded to the month of May in 1991 — since then, it continues to serve as a means of recognizing the contributions of AAPI individuals in the United States. Following the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent “Stop Asian Hate” movement, there has been increased awareness of the unique…
Students confront youth incarceration through community-focused advocacy
Although young girls are arrested at a lower rate than to their male counterparts, they not only make up a growing proportion of teen arrests in the United States but are also disproportionately incarcerated for low-level offenses. To combat this, the program ROSES — Resilience, Opportunity, Safety, Education and Strength — at NYU’s Institute of Human Development and Social Change works one-on-one with young girls involved in or at risk of having involvement in the juvenile justice system and helping them effectively navigate personal challenges. ROSES began as an experimental intervention when Shabnam Javdani, an associate professor of applied psychology and founder of ROSES, was first exploring the possibilities of…
20 years in, this CAS department combines analysis and activism
Many people associate the disciplines of history, literature and politics with analyzing old laws and lengthy manuscripts. However, after meeting the people behind NYU’s Department of Social and Cultural Analysis, you’ll realize that this is not the only way to study history. Housed in the College of Arts & Science and the Graduate School of Arts & Science, the department had a humble start in 2005, meant to consolidate five existing programs ranging from ethnic to metropolitan studies. On their own, the programs did not have the power to hire new faculty and would have had to partner with larger departments to do so, according to current Department Chair Nikhil…
