Critical Eye on Tech & AI: Protecting Black Youth
About this Event
500 Howard PI NW, Washington, DC 20059
Digital technology and AI, in ways both seen and hidden, are enmeshed in the lives of adolescents across various parts of their lives at an unprecedented level. The impact on Black youth is particularly nefarious. Parents, educators and anyone else interested in protecting them need both awareness and strategies to mitigate the consequences, while still positioning them to both thrive and create within this paradigm. This session will combine scholarship, discussion, and community engagement to explore the issues and potential solutions. The Howard University Law School AI Initiative and the Moorland Spingarn Research Center invite you to engage with us in this very important and imminent topic. Presenters will discuss issues affecting Black youth including preserving critical consciousness development, the dangers of deepfake image and video generation, and the surveillance state, which will be followed by both a panel and community discussion.
PARKING: Please give yourself extra time to find parking and walk to the building. There is street parking around campus and in proximity to Founder’s Library, the event location, but it may not be the easiest to find at that time of day. One option is to park down the hill at the Howard Lot on Georgia Avenue (across the street from the University bookstore), which is a 5-10 minute walk from Founder’s Library. It’s $10.
About the Overall series
Critical Eye on Tech & AI is a scholarly engagement series that examines how technology shapes Black life — our language, our learning, our labor, and our liberation. From the classroom to the algorithm, it explores how bias hides in code, how innovation can both empower and erase, and how Black communities may be able to harness these tools with consciousness and intention in sustainable and empowering ways. Rooted in history and charged with Afrofuturist vision, the series challenges us to confront digital power structures while imagining new, just, and self-determined Black futures in the age of AI.
Presenters
Roy Austin, Esq., Founding Director, HU Law School AI Initiative
Presentation Title: It's 10 PM. Do you know where your children are?
Roy L. Austin, Jr. is the Inaugural Director of the Howard Law Artificial Intelligence Initiative. Previously, Roy was Meta’s VP of Civil Rights and Deputy GC. Earlier, he was a partner with HWG Law and McDermott Will & Emery; a Trial Attorney with the Criminal Section of the US Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division; Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Civil Rights Division; and the White House Domestic Policy Council’s Deputy Assistant to President Obama for the Office of Urban Affairs, Justice and Opportunity.
Jordan Gasior Kavishe, AI Governance Fellow, Center for Democracy and Technology
Presentation Title: The Slow Violence of Non-Consensual Intimate Imagery on Individual Rights and Democracy
Jordan “Jo” Gasior-Kavishe is an AI Governance Fellow in the AI Governance Lab at the Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT). Before CDT, she held numerous different technical and policy positions in industry, civil society, and academia-from IBM Research and the American Civil Liberties Union to Brown University’s Center for Technological Responsibility. Jo is deeply, and broadly, interested in artificial intelligence's impacts on civil rights, civil liberties, and human rights.
Clarence Okoh, Esq., Senior Attorney for Civil Rights and Technology, TechTonic Justice
Presentation Title: Black Youth, Digital Surveillance & The New Jim Code
Clarence Okoh is Senior Attorney for Civil Rights & Technology at TechTonic Justice, a new national digital justice organization focused on the impact of AI and automation on low-income communities. He is co-founder of the NOTICE Coalition: No Tech Criminalization in Education, a national network of advocates fighting against AI surveillance and algorithmic discrimination impacting vulnerable youth. He has worked across a range of civil society organizations, including the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, the Center on Law and Social Policy (CLASP), and the Georgetown Law Center on Privacy and Technology.
Kweli Zukeri, Ph.D., Asst. VP of Web Innovation & Strategy, Howard University
Presentation Title: Critical Consciousness Development to Protect Black Youth from GenAI’s Dangers
Bio: Kweli Zukeri, Ph.D., is a digital strategist, educator, and builder working at the intersection of technology, culture, and equity. As Assistant Vice President of Web Innovation & Strategy at Howard University, he leads enterprise digital transformation, AI governance, and culturally responsive technology initiatives. Dr. Kweli researches and teaches about the impact of digital technology on Black youth, seeking to both protect and empower them. He is co-founder of the The Liberation Lab, which seeks to turn the media youth already consume into opportunities to build critical awareness, agency, and the power to act.
