Article
For her Action Project, Senior Fellow Chryssa Mela planned, coordinated, and implemented a seminar series for law students and recent graduates. The seminar was created to educate students on the interplay between law and racism in the Greek context.
About the Project
The ultimate goal of the project is to create a generation of attorneys, judges, and legal practitioners well-informed about racial issues in order to change both the way they approach clients who do not fall into the white norm. Additionally, she would like to change the discourse produced in the courtrooms towards a more unbiased and inclusive society, Chryssa explains.
Inspiration behind the Project
Throughout her experience as part of the 2019 John Lewis Fellowship cohort in Atlanta, Georgia, it was extensively examined how race has historically formed the basis for multi-level discrimination; by segregation in the public sphere, direct discrimination within the legal provisions, and criminalization which results in mass incarceration. Following the experience, Chryssa came back to Athens with motivated to pursue her research question. She wanted to know, how does race play out within the Greek justice system? Chryssa started exploring what race means in the Greek context and what important examples there are of its meaning in the everyday legal practice.
Chryssa would like to change the discourse produced in the courtrooms towards a more unbiased and inclusive society
Chryssa would like to change the discourse produced in the courtrooms towards a more unbiased and inclusive society
Project Development
For the next step, Chryssa contacted organizations and professionals working in this field to gain insights and answer her question as well as to ensure she could reach multiple networks and communities. Concurrently, she decided that she would like share to her learnings from the fellowship and her research in Athens with other law students and bring them together with professionals who can provide expertise and lived experiences about the notion of race in Greek reality and legal system.
Partner Organizations
For this project, Chryssa cooperated with two Greece-based second-generation migrant organizations, namely Generation 2.0 and the Anasa Cultural Center.
Generation 2.0 was created by second-generation migrants and its core activities are about equality, rights, diversity, and empowerment of migrant communities through a variety of activities such as legal support, career counseling, non-formal education, research, and advocacy. It cooperates with many organisations such as the European Network Against Racism.
Anasa Cultural Center is an NGO working towards eradicating racism, exclusion, and discrimination by promoting multiculturalism and intercultural dialogue through the arts to particularly facilitate the inclusion of people of African origin.
3-Day Seminar on Institutional Racism in the Greek Legal System
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the seminar was held virtually. The three day seminar started out with a screening of the documentary 13th directed by Ava DuVernay. This screening sparked discussions about the correlations between the racial segregation of the American criminal legal system and the Greek reality.
On the second day of the seminar, speaker Stvi Kitsou presented a talk on anti-racist legislation and its implementation. Up next, Natasha Martin, Grace Nuke, and Michael Afolanio from the Anasa Cultural Center presented on the value of protective legal frameworks from the perspective of Afro-Hellenic Communities.
On the final day of the seminar, Jackie Abhulimen spoke on the issue of everyday and institutional racism in Greece in regards to the experience of defending the rights of Generation 2.0. Lastly, Chris Mela gave a final presentation on institutional and non-institutional ways of dealing with racism.
Updated August 2023.
