Chicago Program’s Mary Scott-Boria to Speak on Movement to End Violence Against Women

Mary Scott-Boria, Faculty and Internship Coordinator for the ACM Chicago Program: Arts, Entrepreneurship, & Urban Studies, will be a panelist in an upcoming discussion centered on scholar activist Beth Ritchie’s newest book, Arrested Justice: Black Women, Violence, and America’s Prison Nation.

Ritchie is Director of the Institute for Research on Race and Public Policy and Professor of African American Studies and Criminology, Law and Justice at The University of Illinois at Chicago. The emphasis of her scholarly and activist work has been on the ways that race/ethnicity and social position affect women’s experience of violence and incarceration, focusing on the experiences of African American battered women and sexual assault survivors.

The discussion will feature several national and local activists who are working to end violence against women and prison abolition as a feminist issue. Joining Ritchie and Scott-Boria in the panel will be Jane Hereth, Mariame Kaba, Sharmili Majmudar, and Erica R. Meiners.

The event, which is free and open to the public, will be held on Saturday, December 1, from 4:00-7:00 p.m. at Experimental Station, 6100 S. Blackstone Avenue in Chicago. Reservations are required. Event details and information about the guest speakers are available on the Illinois Humanities Council website.

“Arrested Justice recounts that history of the movement to end violence against women, the growth of the prison system, and the broader social policies that married those two issues together in some ways,” Scott-Boria said. “The panel will bring together people who have worked in the violence-against-women movement at various points in that history.”

A life-long activist for social justice, Scott-Boria has taught and mentored college students on ACM’s off-campus study program in Chicago for the past 13 years. Prior to joining ACM, she served as Director of Women’s Services for the Metropolitan YWCA, and also has been the founding Executive Director of the Chicago Sexual Assault Services Network, Director of the Youth Services Project (YSP), and a founding executive member of the Cook County Democratic Women. She holds a master’s degree in Social Work from the University of Illinois at Chicago and a Master of Divinity degree from the McCormick Theological Seminary.

The Arrested Justice event is hosted by The Public Square, a program of the Illinois Humanities Council with a mission to foster debate, dialogue, and exchange of ideas about cultural, social, and political issues with an emphasis on social justice. Co-sponsors are the Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality, the Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture, and the Institute for Research on Race and Public Policy.

Links:

• Chicago Program: Arts, Entrepreneurship, & Urban Studies
• Mary Scott-Boria’s bio
• Information about the Arrested Justice event and participants
• Illinois Humanities Council