It was happening again. Another unarmed person of color killed by police. Another grieving city at the breaking point.

As images of George Floyd suffocating beneath the knee of Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin were broadcast globally last spring, Washington State University’s Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology was mobilizing.

Melanie-Angela Neuilly
Neuilly

“We are training the next generation of criminal justice professionals and have a responsibility here,” said department Chair Melanie-Angela Neuilly. “Systemic racial bias, fairness and equity are issues we’ve been mindful of and have been including in our curriculum, but we decided to put them at the forefront of everything we do.”

David Makin.
Makin

“It’s really a re-imagining of how we can incorporate action into the curriculum,” said David Makin, an associate professor and director of undergraduate education for the department. “It was a concerted effort. We looked at peer institutions, we met with students, we created focus groups and we took a baseline that helped us determine where we should go from here.”

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