Drawing upon his recent book (The Scandal of Cal: Land Grabs, White Supremacy, and Miseducation at UC Berkeley, Heyday 2023), Tony Platt discusses how and why universities (such as Berkeley) create fantasy narratives about their past and promote amnesia about their actual history; and what can be done to break institutional silence and do justice to history.

Presenter: Tony Platt is a Distinguished Affiliated Scholar at the Center for the Study of Law & Society, University of California, Berkeley. The author of thirteen books dealing with issues of race, inequality, and social justice in American history – including Grave Matters: The Controversy Over Excavating California’s Buried Indigenous Past (2011 and 2021) and Beyond These Walls: Rethinking Crime and Punishment in the United States (2018) – he previously taught at the University of Chicago, UC Berkeley, Sacramento State University, and San Jose State University. His experience as a political activist with the Coalition to Protect Yurok Cultural Legacies at O-pyúweg (Big Lagoon, California) and Berkeley’s Truth and Justice Project shaped his latest book, The Scandal of Cal: Land Grabs, White Supremacy, and Miseducation at UC Berkeley (Heyday, August 2023).