Past Events

Patchwork Apartheid: Private Restriction, Racial Segregation, and Urban Inequality

Monday, November 6, 2023
12:00-1:00 PM
Bryan Cave Moot Courtoom, Room 310
Anheuser-Busch Hall
Washington University in St. Louis

This event was hosted by the Public Interest Law & Policy Speaker series and co-sponsored by the Weidenbaum Center; the Brown School; the Clark-Fox Policy Institute; the Gephardt Institute for Civic & Community Engagement; the Political Science Department; the Black Law Students Association; and the SBA DIversity & Inclusion Chair. 

Featured Speakers

  • Colin Gordon, Professor, University of Iowa
  • Karen Tokarz, Charles Nagel Professor of Public Interest Law & Policy; Professor of African & African-American Studies (courtesy appointment); Director, Negotiation & Dispute Resolution Programs and Director, Civil Rights & Community Justice Clinic, Washington University in St. Louis

Professor Colin Gordon writes on the history of American public policy and political economy. His book “Patchwork Apartheid: Private Restriction, Racial Segregation, and Urban Inequality,” on the use of racial convenants in the Midwest, including St. Louis and St. Louis County, is scheduled to come out next month. 

Professor Karen Tokarz will moderate the discussion. Professor of law in the Washington University School of Law since 1987, Professor Tokarz is an internationally recognized expert in dispute resolution, civil rights, and clinical legal education. In 2008, she was named the inaugural Charles Nagel Professor of Public Interest Law and Policy at the law school.

Professor Tokarz’s scholarship addresses a broad range of public interest law and policy issues, including civil rights, international human rights, mediation, and women’s legal history. Director of the law school’s Negotiation & Dispute Resolution Programs, Professor Tokarz has been named to Best Lawyers in America in the field of Mediation every year since 2010. In fall 2019, she was inducted as a Distinguished Fellow in the International Academy of Mediators. Past director of the school’s highly ranked Clinical Education Program, she currently serves as director of the law school Civil Rights, Community Justice & Mediation Clinic.


This event is in-person only. It will be recorded and later posted on the PILPSS webpage. For questions, please email Karen Tokarz, tokarz@wustl.edu