Chief Judge Karen Bennett-Haron of the Las Vegas Justice Courts to speak on culturally responsive law as a means of dissembling the school-to-prison pipeline.

Judge Bennett-Haron is the first and only African-American woman to sit on the bench for the State of Nevada. Judge Bennett-Haron, a Las Vegas native, has spent the majority of her life and career focusing on the challenges and opportunities facing her community and how the law can serve as an anecdote to the struggles that communities face. As a sitting judge, her work has been groundbreaking in reorganizing the structure of courts to be more responsive to community needs. In particular, Judge Bennett-Haron has engaged in the process of establishing community courts to reduce recidivism among offenders, to engage the community as part of the solution to crime, and to change approaches by which the criminal justice system operates.