About Us

The Gibson-Banks Center uses several tools of transformation—education and engagement, advocacy, and research—to clarify and protect the legal rights of racially marginalized groups in a wide range of areas, including the criminal legal system, economic justice, employment, education, housing, health, technology, transportation, voting, and emerging issues.

What We Do

The Gibson-Banks Center hosts public lectures, conferences, and symposia focused on current and/or historical perspectives on race and the law.  We also utilize different artistic forms—including film screenings, book talks, and other expressive forms—to extend and deepen both the understanding and urgency of addressing racial inequalities.

The Gibson-Banks Center’s advocacy work includes initiating or supporting litigation or administrative hearings in state and federal courts and agencies; authoring amicus (‘friend of the court’) briefs in cases of local, state, and national importance; and advancing policy and legislative change at the local, state, and federal levels.

The Gibson-Banks Center produces and promotes legal scholarship and multidisciplinary research focused on examining and addressing racial and intersectional inequalities and injustices.

Our Work

  • December 13, 2024: The Gibson-Banks Center signed on to an amicus brief (People of the State of New York v. Dalen Joseph) filed in the Supreme Court of the State of New York Appellate Division urging the court to reverse the felony-murder conviction of Dalen Joseph, a Black teenager. In New York, the felony-murder doctrine provides that an unintentional death that occurs during the commission of certain felonies becomes second degree murder. The brief argues that the doctrine should not apply to Joseph because its application raises racial bias, due process, and unjust punishment concerns.
  • December 9, 2024: The Center joined over 130 organizations in asking President Biden to commute the death sentences of the 40 individuals who are on federal death row. The letter acknowledges the Biden administration’s moratorium on executions for those sentenced to death, but urges that more needs to be done. (Death Row Commutation Letter)
  • June 2024 – The Gibson-Banks Center signed on to an amicus brief filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit urging the Court to grant the petitioner’s Motion for Certificate of Appealability because defense counsel relied on racial stereotypes while arguing at sentencing that his own client, a Black man subsequently sentenced to death, was biologically predisposed toward violence because he is Black.

  • May 23, 2024 – Professor Michael Pinard, Faculty Director, Gibson-Banks Center, addressed the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyer’s Seminar, Race Matters: Addressing the Intersection of Race in the Criminal Legal System, in a presentation titled, Defending is Not Enough.
  • February 2024
    • The Gibson-Banks Center signed on to an amicus brief filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit arguing for recognition of intersectional race-and-gender groups, such as Black women, as a protected class under Batson v. Kentucky, a U.S. Supreme Court case that held unconstitutional the practice of using peremptory challenges to automatically exclude potential jurors because of their race.
    • The Gibson-Banks Center’s student fellow, Brandon Miller, Erek L. Barron Fellow, submitted testimony in favor of Maryland House and Senate bills seeking to establish a Correctional Ombudsman Unit (subsequently passed and signed into law). 
    • The Center’s student fellow, Brandon Miller, Erek L. Barron Fellow, submitted written testimony in favor of Maryland House and Senate bills seeking to broaden investigatory authority of local police accountability boards.  
  • October 2023 – The Gibson-Banks Center announced as a member organization of the Maryland Equitable Justice Collaborative, a joint initiative between the Maryland Office of the Attorney General and the Maryland Office of the Public Defender focused on addressing mass incarceration rates of Black men and other marginalized groups in Maryland’s prisons and jails. 
  • November 17, 2023 – The Gibson-Banks Center cohosted a conference commemorating the release of the book, Race and National Security, edited by Matiangai Sirleaf, Nathan Patz Professor of Law at Maryland Carey Law.

Leadership

Gibson, Hutchins, Banks, Pinard

(From left to right:  Larry Gibson, Renée Hutchins Laurent, Taunya Lovell Banks, and Michael Pinard on the occasion of the fall 2023 launch of the Gibson-Banks Center on Race and the Law)

Hutchins Laurent HeadshotRenée Hutchins Laurent, the Dean of Maryland Carey Law, is a leading expert in the United States on the Fourth Amendment. Her scholarship has focused on various ways in which race intersects with the Fourth Amendment, including racial profiling and stop-and-frisk.

 

 

Pinard HeadshotMichael Pinard, the Francis & Harriet Iglehart Professor of Law, is a national leader on issues related to race and the criminal legal system. He is the intellectual and visionary lead behind the law school’s efforts to create the Gibson-Banks Center.  

 

 

 

Gibson HeadshotLarry Gibson, the Morton & Sophia Macht Professor of Law, is a legal historian who has written one of the definitive biographies of Thurgood Marshall and will soon release a second book about Justice Marshall. He teaches seminars on Thurgood Marshall and race and the law. He has curated several exhibits on the history of Black lawyers in Maryland. In 1974, Gibson became the first Black man to become a tenured professor at Maryland Carey Law. He has indeed demonstrated strong leadership both within and outside of the law school.

 

Banks HeadshotTaunya Lovell Banks, Jacob A. France Professor of Equality Jurisprudence, taught her final class at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law in fall 2021. The legendary critical race theory scholar and first tenured Black woman on the law school faculty retired after an illustrious career in which she trained her sharp scholarship on exposing systemic sexism and racism and inspired generations of students and colleagues to dedicate their legal careers to the fight for social justice.

 

 

Dixon HeadshotMonique L. Dixon, Executive Director, Gibson-Banks Center for Race and the Law, is responsible for managing the day-to-day operations of and strategic planning for the Gibson-Banks Center. She joined the Center after serving as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy at the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights.

 

 

Teresa HeadshotTeresa Christian, Paralegal, Gibson-Banks Center for Race and the Law, provides paralegal services and programmatic support to the Center.

 

 

 

Brandon Miller, Erek L. Baron Fellow, serves as a student fellow at the Gibson-Banks Center for Race and the Law.