Episode 12: 'What Institutional Courage Looks Like'

This is Episode 12 in CASBS's live webcast series Social Science for a World in Crisis.

On February 3, 2021, CASBS hosted a live online panel discussion featuring Jennifer Freyd, Jennifer Gómez, and Carolyn Warner in conversation with Estelle Freedman. See event summary further below.

CASBS co-hosted this episode in partnership with Center for Institutional Courage, the Gendered Violence Research Network at Arizona State University, the Merrill Palmer Skillman Institute at Wayne State University, and the Metro Detroit Association of Black Psychologists.

CASBS on Twitter: @CASBSStanford

Listen and subscribe to the CASBS podcast, Human Centered, wherever you get your podcasts.

Event Summary

We depend on institutions – government bodies, legal systems and law enforcement agencies, schools, places of worship, businesses, hospitals, and civic organizations – to serve, protect, and promote individual and community flourishing. When institutions betray or fail to act, trust in the social contract erodes. Prominent examples include sexual violence and abuses (with harms compounded by inaction or cover-up) implicating the Catholic Church, the Boy Scouts, the military, universities, and corporate cultures; and persistent prejudice, discrimination, and lethal violence by, or condoned by, institutions against Blacks. The COVID pandemic only magnifies the disproportionate effects of institutional failures on vulnerable or marginalized populations.

What conditions are necessary for holding institutions accountable and to higher standards? Which institutions have responded to challenges productively, and why? When do the internal rules and structures of institutions or deference to institutions constrain reform efforts? And what, according to social science research, does institutional courage look like? Join Jennifer Freyd, Jennifer Gómez, and Carolyn Warner in conversation with Estelle Freedman as they explore how we can redeem and transform some of society’s most critical institutions into more just, inclusive, equitable, and healthy places for the common good.