The 2023 George Boyer Vashon Lecture: Understanding and Navigating Bias in Artificial Intelligence

May 19, 2023 | Philadelphia (Live and Virtual) | The Westin Philadelphia

Duane Morris will present the 2023 George Boyer Vashon Lecture, Understanding and Navigating Bias in Artificial Intelligence, on Friday, May 19, 2023 (Virtual and In Person), at The Westin Philadelphia.

Registration: 3:30 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.
Program: 4:00 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.
Reception: 5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.

1.5 hours of CLE credit pending for in-person attendees.

Welcome Address

Matthew A. Taylor, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Duane Morris LLP

Opening Remarks

Joseph K. West, Trial Partner and Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer, Duane Morris LLP

Moderator

Suzanne Malveaux, CEO, Malveaux Global Media (MGM); Former CNN Anchor and White House Correspondent

Panelists

Antony Haynes, Associate Dean, Albany Law School

Terrie-Lynne Devonish, Chief Legal Officer and Corporate Secretary, Altus Group

Agatha H. Liu, Ph.D., Intellectual Property Partner, Duane Morris LLP

Bridget McCormack, President and CEO, The American Arbitration Association

About the 2023 Vashon Lecture

The overt discrimination laws of our past continue to impact various aspects of society today. The vestiges of biases can often find their way into algorithms and various aspects of artificial intelligence, sometimes creating and perpetuating new systems of subtle discrimination. This is a new era, where race and technology intersect, with far-reaching implications. Our panel examines and unravels how these technologies impact us across various disciplines.

Topics include:

• How to recognize bias in everyday technology
• How biases get coded into technology
• The rapid rise of AI and the new challenges we face
• Advocacy and social and technological justice in the Jim Code era

About the George Boyer Vashon Lecture

The George Boyer Vashon Lecture honors the life of George B. Vashon (b. 1824) by exploring issues of justice and fairness. In 2010, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court addressed the wrongness of discrimination against Vashon, based upon race, which was the law of this commonwealth more than a century and a half ago. The intersection of politics, economics and the exploration of issues of law and social justice constantly evolve. This lecture is an opportunity for us to look to the future and discuss what we can expect.

Vashon was a noted African American legal scholar and abolitionist. He twice sought admission to practice law in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, but was rejected in both cases because of his race. In October 2010, after Vashon’s great-grandson, Duane Morris’ former Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer Nolan N. Atkinson Jr., and others petitioned the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, Vashon was officially admitted posthumously to the bar of the courts of the commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

As a teenager, alongside his father who was an abolitionist and well-respected leader in the black community, Vashon co-founded the Pittsburgh Anti-Slavery Society in 1838. He attended Oberlin College, where he was the first African American to receive a bachelor’s degree. After he was denied the right to practice law in Allegheny County, he moved to New York and became the first licensed African American attorney in that state. Later returning to Pittsburgh, Vashon became a principal at an African American public school and served as president of Avery College. He moved to Washington, D.C., where he was admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court and, in 1867, became one of the first Black professors at Howard University. Vashon died in Mississippi in 1878 during a yellow fever epidemic.