Social Justice for Data Science Lecture Series

The Social Justice for Data Science Lecture Series, hosted by the Faculty of Computing and 数据科学, brings together leading scholars in law, computer science, humanities, and social science to examine the current state of data science and social justice. The goal of the series is to engage with the relationship between justice (as a historically contingent and value-laden category) and data science (with a focus on datafication, automation, predictive analytics, and algorithmic decision-making).

The series, developed by Ngozi Okidegbe, Moorman-Simon Interdisciplinary Career Development Assistant Professor of Computing & 数据科学 and Associate Professor of Law, and Allison McDonald, Assistant Professor of Computing & 数据科学, will delve into the ways data science operates to advance, transform, and hinder justice-oriented movements by underrepresented and politically marginalized communities in different areas of life, and draw lessons that can help reorient the field of data science toward justice.

Fall 2024 Speaker Lineup

Afrofuturism, Policing, and Justice

Presenter: Bennett Capers, Associate Dean for Research, Stanley D. and Nikki Waxberg Chair, Professor of Law, and Director, Center on Race, Law, and Justice at Fordham Law School

Date: Monday, December 2, 4:30-6:15 PM

Location: BU Computing & 数据科学, 665 Commonwealth Avenue, Room 1750, Boston, MA

Abstract: In this talk, Professor Capers will argue that we can learn a lot by examining how artists, cybertheorists, and speculative scholars of color—Afrofuturists and Critical Race Theorists—have imagined the future, especially when it comes to policing, race, and technology. Too often, policing technology is viewed as privacy diminishing, as Big Brother run amok, and as exacerbating racial inequities. But it doesn’t have to be this way. How can we harness policing technologies in ways that not only reduce crime but also de-racialize policing?  How can we use technology to limit and even eliminate police abuses, including police violence? In short, how can we—legal scholars and non-legal scholars alike—use Afrofuturism and Critical Race Theory to map a way to a better, safer, and more egalitarian future for everyone?

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Visible Barriers for Invisible People: Healthcare Access Among Stateless Populations

Presenter: Muhammad Zaman, Director of the Center on Forced Displacement and Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professor of Biomedical Engineering and International Health at Boston University

Date: Wednesday, November 20, 4:30-6:15 PM

Location: BU Computing & 数据科学, 665 Commonwealth Avenue, Room 1750, Boston, MA

Abstract: Healthcare access among forcibly displaced communities is often shaped by dimensions of trust; trust in their own social network, trust or mistrust in information, trust or distrust of local authorities and trust or mistrust in technology to name a few. Using a series of case studies from Pakistan, Colombia, Lebanon and South Sudan, this talk will explore the sources of trust and distrust  and how it affects access to healthcare among forcibly displaced. Zaman will also analyze the impact of technology and information on simultaneously improving and undermining trust, especially among the stateless communities. Finally, this talk will discuss how the healthcare access to forcibly displaced communities can be improved through an integrated system that prioritizes trust and what it may mean in a world shaped by conflict, persecution and xenophobia.

About the Speaker: Muhammad Hamid Zaman is the Director of Center on Forced Displacement and Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professor of Biomedical Engineering and International Health at Boston University . A key thrust of his research focuses on analyzing barriers and improving access to healthcare among forcibly displaced communities including refugees, internally displaced persons, and stateless communities.

The School-to-Surveillance Pipeline: Mass School Shootings, Digital Securitization, and the Struggle for Data Justice

Presenter: Chaz Arnett, Professor of Law at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law

Date: Monday, September 30, 4:30-6:15 PM

Location: Barrister's Hall, BU School of Law, 767 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, MA

Abstract: Advancing data-centric technology is enabling schools to search, surveil, and gather information on students in unimaginably powerful ways. Sophisticated surveillance measures such as social media monitoring, facial recognition software, and A.I.-empowered weapons detection systems have been promoted as necessary tools to prevent mass school shootings like the one witnessed in Uvalde, Texas. These new avenues for collecting and analyzing student personal, behavioral, and biometric data raise significant concerns about the effects of datafication on the school environment.

This lecture will examine how school surveillance practices, as they become increasingly digitized, can be understood not only as invoking concerns of criminalization, prosecution, and zero tolerance discipline, but also data-based exploitation and stratification. This understanding necessitates the elevation and use of a critical data lens that recognizes the significant role of data production and extraction in the rise of the Datafied State. The lecture will also explore how data privacy concepts alone are insufficient in navigating this new fraught terrain, where big data surveillance raises issues not just of privacy, as traditionally understood, but also of social sorting and preemption. Instead, it will promote a Data Justice lens, with its emphasis on social and economic justice concerns, as a better approach to examining the implications of data-driven decision-making and governance in K-12 education.

About the Speaker: Chaz Arnett is a professor of law at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law. He is a race, privacy, and criminal law scholar whose work explores questions of ethics, justice, and governance in the context of emerging surveillance technologies.

Past Speakers

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