FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — A legal expert on grooming code discrimination is set to deliver the 2024 Hartman Hotz Lecture in Law and Liberal Arts on April 23 at 4 p.m.
The Hartman Hotz Lectures hosts scholars from across the country to bring their expertise to students at the University of Arkansas (U of A).
Professor D. Wendy Greene, the director of the Center for Law, Policy, and Social Action at Drexel University Kline School of Law, will present "#FreeTheHair: Locking Black Hair to Civil Rights Movements" at this semester's lecture.
"Immensely grateful for the invitation by Dean Cynthia Nance to share with the University of Arkansas community not only my scholarly activism to combat race-based hair discrimination but also how this contemporary civil rights issue is core to historical and transnational emancipatory movements," Greene wrote on Instagram.
Greene, who is the first tenured African American woman law professor at Drexel, focuses on how "constructs of identity shape anti-discrimination law and how the law plays a pivotal role in securing civil rights protections for many individuals in her community."
She is an integral piece in anti-discrimination laws like the state and federal Creating a Respectful Open World for Natural Hair (CROWN) Act, which prohibits race-based hair discrimination.
According to Greene's bio on Drexel's website, the definition of race she proposed in her 2008 article "Title VII: What's Hair (And Other Race-Based Characteristics) Got to Do with it?" is being adopted in the historic legislation.
Greene is also the founder of the #FreeTheHair movement, which is also a vital part of creating change and legislation like CROWN.
At the once-in-a-semester lecture at the U of A, Greene will discuss how the contemporary social justice movement is looking to break generations of racial discrimination against African descendants' appearances, specifically the natural and protective hairstyles used such as twists, braids, and locs.
Greene will contextualize the racial injustice against African descendants and other people of color based on their appearances through historical, legal, and transnational frameworks. Finally, she will share tactics on how to reform race-based hair discrimination.
The lecture will be held at the School of Law's E.J. Ball Courtroom. It is free and open to the public.
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