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Waiting Room opens 8am, Talk starts at 8:30am

CUNY Dispute Resolution Center at John Jay College
and
Association for Conflict Resolution of Greater New York

present

Mediation: Embedded Assumptions of Whiteness?

In 2020, after the murder of George Floyd, ADR professors Sharon Press and Ellen Deason began an exploration on how white supremacy shows up in their professional and personal life. This led to an article entitled “Mediation: Embedded Assumptions of Whiteness?” 22 Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution 453 (2021).  In the article, they look at mediation through the lenses of tone policing (mediation ground rules); color-blindness (focus on the future); white silence (neutrality); and more. The speakers will start with a presentation to raise questions to consider and then provide an opportunity for discussion and reflection. 

Sharon Press is Director of the Dispute Resolution Institute and Professor of Law at Mitchell Hamline School of Law in St. Paul, MN. Press currently serves as Co-President of Community Mediation Minnesota and serves on the boards of the Institute for the Study of Conflict Transformation and Community Mediation and Restorative Services.  Press is a Florida Supreme Court certified county and family mediator and on Minnesota’s Rule 114 Roster of Civil Facilitative and Hybrid Neutrals.  She also mediates regularly in Conciliation, Housing, and Harassment Courts and for the Minnesota Department of Human Rights.  Prior to joining Mitchell Hamline Law, Press served as director of the Florida Dispute Resolution Center where she was responsible for the ADR programs for the Florida state court system during its formative years. Press is the recipient of numerous professional awards, including the Mary Parker Follett Award for Excellence and Innovation in Dispute Resolution presented by the Association for Conflict Resolution and CPR Institute for Dispute Resolution’s Special Award for Distinguished Contributions to the Field and Future of Dispute Resolution.  Press was the Association for Conflict Resolution’s representative to the Drafting Committee for the Model Standards of Conduct for Mediators adopted by the AAA, ABA and ACR.  She received her B.A. from The George Washington University School of Public and International Affairs and her J.D. from The George Washington University National Law Center.

Ellen E. Deason is the Joanne Wharton Murphy / Classes of 1965 and 1973 Professor in Law Emerita at the Ohio State University Moritz College of Law in Columbus, Ohio, where she taught Mediation, International Commercial Arbitration & Mediation, Civil Procedure, and other Dispute Resolution courses. She serves as Reporter for two Uniform Law Commission Committees related to Dispute Resolution and Litigation. She is a past Chair of the American Association of Law Schools (AALS) ADR Section. Her article Beyond ‘Managerial Judges’: Appropriate Roles in Settlement was selected as the best article of 1997 by the AALS ADR Section. She has been honored with multiple teaching awards, including the Ohio State University Alumni Award for Distinguished Teaching. Deason is a graduate of Carleton College, which has selected her for an Alumni Distinguished Achievement Award, Oregon State University (Biological Oceanography), and Michigan Law School. She clerked for Judge Harry T. Edwards, Justice Harry A. Blackmun, and arbitrator Howard Holtzman. She and Sharon Press are co-authors of Mediation: Embedded Assumptions of Whiteness?, 22 Cardozo J. Conflict Resol. 453 (2021). For more, see https://moritzlaw.osu.edu/faculty/ellen-e-deason/ .