Ekow N. Yankah | |
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Academic background | |
Alma mater | University of Michigan Columbia University University of Oxford |
Academic work | |
Institutions | Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law |
Ekow Nyansah Yankah is an American jurist who is the Thomas Cooley Professor of Law at the University of Michigan. His research considers criminal law,election law and police brutality.
Yankah,born to Ghanaian parents,earned his bachelor's degree at the University of Michigan. He obtained his Juris Doctor from Columbia Law School in 2000. [1] Yankah was awarded a Marshall Scholarship to study at the University of Oxford,earning a Bachelor of Civil Law at Lincoln College. He held visiting positions at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya and the University of Toronto Faculty of Law. [2] His first faculty position was at the University of Illinois College of Law. [1]
His research considers the intersection of law and society. In particular,Yankah focusses on election reform,criminal justice and policing. He believes that the American legal system fails Black communities,with a particular focus on opioid addiction, [3] mass incarceration and police brutality. [4] [5] [6]
Yankah has investigated voting rights and election law. He is co-chair of the New York Democratic Lawyers Council (NYDLC),a coalition of attorneys who look to protect a citizen's right to vote. [7] The NYDLC are involved with election monitoring,pro-voting advocacy and educational empowerment. [8] In 2021,state leaders in New York appointed Yankah chair of the state’s newly established Public Campaign Finance Board. [9]
He is committed to criminal justice reform,and serves on the Board of Directors of the Innocence Project. [10] In 2017 Yankah was awarded the Innocence Project Advocate of Justice award. [11] In particular,he believes that the vague language of the Constitution of the United States leaves too much scope for dangerous interpretation;systematically supporting police brutality. [12] Yankah has studied the legal landscape of accountability for police officers. [13] During the Ferguson unrest Yankah attended a rally at Columbia University. He said,"If I hear one more commentator on public TV say,'Let's start a conversation about race,' I will lose my mind ... We've been having a conversation for 80 years,". [14] In the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd,Yankah said,“We can no longer have an America where white problems are social problems and black problems are policing problems,”. [15]
In 2019 Yankah taught a course on Black Lives Matter,race and policing at the Georgetown University Law Center. [16]
In 2017,Yankah penned an opinion editorial for the New York Times questioning whether he could allow his children to befriend white people in the era of Donald Trump's presidency. [17] The article was criticized by many political commentators. [18]
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Innocence Project, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit legal organization that is committed to exonerating individuals who have been wrongly convicted, through the use of DNA testing and working to reform the criminal justice system to prevent future injustice. The group cites various studies estimating that in the United States between 1% and 10% of all prisoners are innocent. The Innocence Project was founded in 1992 by Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld who gained national attention in the mid-1990s as part of the "Dream Team" of lawyers who formed part of the defense in the O. J. Simpson murder case.
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The Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law is the law school of Yeshiva University. Located in New York City and founded in 1976, the school is named for Supreme Court Justice Benjamin N. Cardozo. Cardozo graduated its first class in 1979. An LL.M. program was established in 1998. Cardozo is nondenominational and has a secular curriculum, in contrast to some of YU's undergraduate programs. Around 320 students begin the J.D. program per year, of whom about 57% are women. In addition, there are about 60–70 LL.M. students each year.
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Criminal justice reform seeks to address structural issues in criminal justice systems such as racial profiling, police brutality, overcriminalization, mass incarceration, and recidivism. Criminal justice reform can take place at any point where the criminal justice system intervenes in citizens’ lives, including lawmaking, policing, and sentencing.
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