The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Building bridges and breaking down walls
Associate professor serves as role model for black women
NEW HAVEN>> Khalilah Brown-Dean had decided at age 9 that she wanted to be an attorney.
But in the summer before her senior year in college, that all changed.
“I was out registering people to vote and this man said to me he couldn’t vote, and I just couldn’t understand why,” said Brown-Dean, a native of Lynchburg, Virginia.
The man lived in Virginia and had a felony record, which meant he could never vote again.
From that point on, “that made me think about the law in a really different way,” Brown-Dean said.
That summer, she was awarded a scholarship into a research program and the professor advised her that she should consider earning a doctorate in the field of political science.
“The professor liked how I thought about issues, which wasn’t just about practicing the law, but understanding the origins of law,” BrownDean said.
Thirty-one years later, Brown-Dean, 40, didn’t become an attorney but, having earned that doctorate, serves as associate professor of political science at Quinnipiac University. Brown-Dean spoke on a
variety of topics with the Register from an AfricanAmerican perspective, which includes the issue of the mass incarceration of black men, the Obama legacy and the challenges of teaching at a predominantly white institution.
Brown-Dean’s research focuses on the political dynamics surrounding the American criminal justice system.
“Part of the challenge has been the disconnect between what the intent of the law is and what the impact of the law has been. When you have a black and white defendant charged with the same crime and receiving very different sentences and punishments, we have to look at the why,” said Brown-Dean, who has been a resident of New Haven for 13 years.
“A lot of that has to do with the stereotypes we have of who commits crimes and where police decide to target,” she said.
A 2014 report by the National Academy of Sciences, “The Growth of Incarceration in the United States: Exploring Causes and Consequences,” found that, of those imprisoned nationwide in 2011, about 60 percent were minorities, including 858,000 blacks and 464,000 Hispanics.
The report found that “racial and ethnic disparities in imprisonment reached extreme and unprecedented levels in the 1980s and 1990s.” The rates have since declined but “remained at deeply troubling levels.”
“You can’t get arrested unless police are in your area looking to make an arrest,” said Brown-Dean.
“I don’t think drug use in New Haven is greater than in shoreline towns like Guilford or Branford, but I know the level of police interaction is much greater,” she said. “In some ways, black men became ensnared, yet also having to take personal responsibility and accountability. If you’re doing wrong, you put yourself at risk of being punished.”
African Americans constitute nearly 1 million of the total 2.3 million incarcerated population, according to data by the NA ACP.
Five times as many whites are using drugs as African Americans, yet African Americans are sent to prison for drug offenses at 10 times the rate of whites, according to the data.
Amid a drop in overall crime rates and prison reform efforts, the average incarcerated population in Connecticut in December was 14,914, according to the Department of Correction website. In 2014, Connecticut’s prison population totaled 16,594, and 15,485 of that number were men, according to the website.
Of those inmates in 2014, 6,934 were black and 4,336 were Hispanic. Whites comprised 5,207 of the inmate population.
While Brown-Dean admits she is naturally cynical about what politicians or elected officials can do while in office due to the constraints, she believes President Barack Obama had success.
“I didn’t have the unrealistic expectation that Barack Obama was going to change in eight years what had been cultivated over 300-plus years,” said Brown-Dean.
“I also understood that some of what we were expecting him to do were things that were best suited for local and state government,” she said.
With regards to some of the former president’s success, “I think if you look at our last 10 presidents, Barack Obama has far exceeded what any of them have done in terms of addressing the injustices in our criminal justice system or trying to dismantle the war on drugs, which has been a colossal failure, and he has pardoned more people then the last four presidents combined,” she said.
“Those are the areas where you see direct impact on the communities who have been devastated by punishment; in those ways, he has been successful given the obstacles that he faced.”
Brown-Dean is no stranger to obstacles. She is one of a handful of professors of color at Quinnipiac University.
“Particularly because I teach political science as a woman, as an AfricanAmerican woman, and as someone who is relatively young as a professor — you walk into a classroom and students automatically assume your politics,” said Brown-Dean, who earned her doctorate from Ohio State University.
Brown-Dean said students assume she’s liberal and has particular political views.
“I’m not there to teach my students what they should think about policy, I’m there to encourage them to think and challenge them,” she said. “I want them to know they don’t have to agree with me, but I want them to be able to articulate their point and support it as well as understanding other perspectives.”
One of her colleagues at the university, assistant professor of sociology Don Sawyer, said one of the criticisms of university professors is that they only understand so-called book knowledge.
But Sawyer said BrownDean stands out because she is connected to the community and university.
“Through her work, she tries to bring those two together — sometimes the community and university are at odds with one another, but the work that she does builds bridges and breaks down those walls and barriers that allow the community and university to create meaningful partnerships,” said Sawyer, who earned his doctorate at Syracuse University.
“We need more black women in all fields, specifically on this campus; her presence is known,” he said.
One way to draw diversity in faculty, according to Sawyer, is for more blacks to earn doctorates.
“We have to create this pipeline,” said Sawyer.
“It’s important for people to understand that black women like Khalilah are not created in faculties, but produced through a pipeline; we have to create a pipeline for more black women to see it as a viable option,” Sawyer said.
Role models
Brown-Dean said that as a young girl she wanted to model her life after one of her cousins, who was not only an intellectual but heavily involved with community service projects, serving as a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Inc.
Brown-Dean said it was her cousin’s involvement with the sorority that inspired her to join.
“She graduated high school at 16 and went on to Ohio State University for grad school; I wanted to follow her path,” Brown-Dean said. “All of the teachers and mentors I had in my formative years were Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority members, and I saw early on what was possible and what was also required and expected of me.”
Last month, BrownDean was elected president of the local chapter, Theta Epsilon Omega.
But she said her biggest challenge is balancing her role as a citizen and as a professor.
“It’s hard to talk about things like a police-involved shooting and not feel an emotional connection to that,” said BrownDean.
In some ways, she said, “you have to put that aside to really focus on the issues and there are always other people who feel you should be doing certain things in certain ways,” she said. “I have to stay true to my mission and my vision, despite of what everybody else says I should do.”
As the nation celebrates the contributions of black Americans, she said the month for her means “seeing the experiences of African Americans as central to the American story.”
“And drawing inspiration from both high-profile figures like Rosa Parks with the same vigor as the everyday foot soldiers whose names aren’t well known, but whose dedication to making America live up to her promise was just as significant.”