University of Maryland Celebrates Naming of Thurgood Marshall Hall

COLLEGE PARK, Md., PRNewswire -- The University of Maryland celebrated the naming of Thurgood Marshall Hall, home of its School of Public Policy, with an event that brought together faculty, staff, students and alums, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore and the son of Thurgood Marshall, Thurgood Marshall, Jr.

This state-of-the-art facility now bears the name of the late civil rights lawyer and former U.S. Supreme Court justice, honoring his role in breaking down barriers for Black and African American students, including the desegregation of the University of Maryland.

“Today marks another historic step in our efforts at the University of Maryland to create a multicultural, inclusive community that gives everyone a chance to succeed,” said UMD President Darryll J. Pines. “On behalf of our community and in honor of Thurgood Marshall’s trailblazing legacy, we now have a building named in honor of one of our greatest Marylanders.”

At the event, Moore presented a governor’s citation to Thurgood Marshall Jr., a School of Public Policy Dean’s Advisory Council member. Moore told the audience, “The naming of a public policy building, the Thurgood Marshall building, is not just honoring a legacy. It is an obligation. It means the things that we are teaching, the students that we are instructing, the legacies that we are building, they must uphold the legacy of the namesake. It means every single day as the work is being done here, it must be done with a full focus in the way that Justice Marshall lived his life. And that was without boundaries.”

Opened in fall 2022, the 70,000-square-foot building dramatically enhanced the student experience with its multifunctional and high-tech spaces.

“Public Policy faculty, students and staff who will work in this beautiful new building are dedicated to developing and reforming policies that will have countless and immeasurable impacts on our society,” UMD Senior Vice President and Provost Jennifer King Rice said at the event. “They partner with local communities, and they engage with leaders and legislators in our state, in our nation’s capital and around the globe.”

Thurgood Marshall Hall supports the school’s mission to advance the public good by drawing together students, faculty and other experts to foster world-changing policy discourse and action.

“Thurgood Marshall was an exemplary policy shaper, policy maker, analytical thinker, powerful advocate, defender of democracy, guardian of civil and human rights, and inspiring leader. He embodied everything our School of Public Policy aspires to, and stands for,” said School of Public Policy Dean Robert C. Orr. “We will come every day to Thurgood Marshall Hall seeking to fashion leaders, to educate moral and wise policy makers, to produce and apply cutting-edge research, and shape inclusive and equitable policy for all.”

Speakers at the event also included University System of Maryland Chancellor Jay A. Perman and School of Public Policy student Shivani Sidh ‘25. On behalf of the university, Pines presented a gift of a framed pair of photos of Thurgood Marshall and the newly named building to his son.

“It is an honor to see the School of Public Policy building at the University of Maryland named after our father,” the Marshall family said in a statement. “This recognition serves as a testament to his legacy as an unapologetic trailblazer for justice and equality. The inspiring work the School does every day to create the next generation of students embodies what was at his core—ensuring a more just and equitable world for all.”

Born in Baltimore, Marshall was barred from applying to the University of Maryland School of Law in 1930 because he was Black. Soon after his graduation from Howard University Law School, where he was ranked first in his class, Marshall joined the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund. He sued the University of Maryland on behalf of another Black student seeking admission to the law school and was part of the team that launched successful legal battles against the university on behalf of Parren Mitchell and Hiram Whittle, who were denied admission based on their race. In 1950, Mitchell became the first Black student to take graduate classes on the College Park campus, and a year later, Whittle enrolled as the university’s first Black undergraduate student.

Marshall went on to argue the landmark case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, which declared segregation unconstitutional. He was appointed to the Supreme Court in 1967, and held the role of associate justice for 24 years.

The honorary naming of Thurgood Marshall Hall expands upon one of the initiatives President Pines announced on his first day in office to embed the names of trailblazers on our campus. This naming builds upon the namings of Yahentamitsi dining facility that honors the Indigenous people of Maryland; and Jones-Hill House, and the Pyon-Chen and Johnson-Whittle residence halls.

National Initiative to Reduce Gun Homicides by 20 Percent Over 5 Years Launches in First 4 Cities

Baltimore, Baton Rouge, Indianapolis, Newark - During Black History Month when the accomplishments, struggles and resilience of the Black Struggle are brought to the forefront of the American public as means to remind our nation that truly without Black History, there is no American history; four national African American led organizations committed to ending gun violence are partnering with mayors across the nation to scale up, unite and bring cohesion to the growing movement of the community violence intervention (CVI) ecosystem.

Building off the core values of community and resilience last week, the Coalition to Advance Public Safety (CAPS) kicked off its groundbreaking initiative to reduce gun homicides and non-fatal shootings by 20 percent over the next five years in Newark, Baltimore, Baton Rouge, and Indianapolis - the first four of an expected 12 cities where CAPS- - will work with mayors, community based organizations and communities to scale up, unite and bring greater cohesion and funding to cities community violence intervention (CVI) ecosystems.

“Today we take a historic step in our journey to reimagine public safety. The Coalition to Advance Public Safety will change the way cities and their partners across the country invest in themselves by saving lives and strengthening communities. I’m honored that Cities United is leading such an important effort, alongside national partners, philanthropic supporters, and local governments’ leadership,” said Anthony Smith, Executive Director of Cities United

In addition to bringing the training and technical assistance to each of the cities, CAPS will help coordinate up to $500,000 available as mini-grants within each jurisdiction.

Last year, gun violence decreased slightly, but still claimed over twenty thousand lives for the second year in a row. While the recent spikes in violence and relentless incidents of mass shootings have sparked new public attention to the urgent crisis of gun violence in this country, this epidemic has devastated communities of color for decades. Between 2000 and 2018, 162,000 Black Americans—including 139,000 Black men—died violent deaths; among those,

85 percent were killed by gun violence. Much of this violence stems from systemic and pervasive inequities such as poverty, barriers to health care, and insufficient educational and economic opportunities.

Fortunately, growing support for the CVI Movement is providing cities and mayors greater hope that similar to the COVID pandemic, we can end this pandemic of gun violence.

Baltimore Mayor Brandon R. Scott highlighted the progress made using CVI in West Baltimore, the home of Freddie Gray, the home of the Wire and countless television shows, saw a 30 percent reduction in violence. “We have to scale up this work,” said Mayor Scott, and “build up (CVI) ecosystems across the country so that we can truly produce the best outcomes.”

Baton Rouge, Louisiana mayor Sharon Weston Broome, pointed to last year’s “23 percent reduction in homicides, and a 14 percent reduction in non-fatal shootings,” in her city as powerful evidence of CVI’s potential. “The complexity of violence can’t be simply addressed without the trust, the buy-in and partnership of the communities that are most affected by violence,” added Mayor Broome.

Newark, New Jersey Mayor Ras Baraka, embraced the idea of CVI as soon as he was elected in 2015, and sees Newark’s 60 year low in homicides last year as clear evidence that with more resources and support, cities can do even more.

“I’m excited about what CAPS offers here,” said Mayor Baraka. “Many Black and brown organizations are led by Black and Brown people in these communities who fight the fight but do not have the resources and support that they need. This gives us the opportunity to supplement what we are doing on a municipal level, some of the things that are happening on a state level and resources that are coming together around this to focus and channel those resources into the right organizations and right folks that are closer to this problem that can get this solved.”

These first four cities represent the pioneering efforts in quantifying the core components and refining the interre- lationships necessary to bring the CVI Ecosystem to scale in ways that are self-correcting, quantitative, and strategic and most importantly – adaptable to any city, jurisdiction, or area of our nation.

To support this work, and help cities better quantify the problem of gun violence, CAPS has developed cviecosystem.org a powerful online tool providing data and analysis of CVI Ecosystems for 50 U.S. cities with high homicide rates on a new website tool. The site represents an amazing step forward in dispelling common myths about gun violence in communities while informing cities what an ideal CVI Ecosystem looks like.

“First important thing for you all to understand is that violence, community violence in particular, is highly concentrated,” says Fatimah Loren Dreier, Executive Director of The HAVI. A 2015 analysis found that 50 percent of all homicides in the entire United States are concentrated in 127 cities. And within those cities it’s only a fraction of a percent of individuals who are again through neglect caught in cycles of violence. “So, there are structural problems, and they can be addressed with structural and targeted interventions.”

For funders supporting this work, it is the strategic approach of connecting the dots among various intervention strategies and scaling them up into a cohesive ecosystem that moves community and gun violence beyond a simple criminal justice frame and leans into a collective public health frame that resonates and gets their support.

CAPS is composed of the Health Alliance for Violence Intervention (The HAVI), National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform (NICJR), Community Based Public Safety Collective (the Collective) and Cities United. The four groups which comprise CAPS have worked together for years and most recently served as the training and technical assistance providers for the recently ended 18-month long White House Community Violence Intervention Collaborative (CVIC). The new initiative will build off lessons learned and strategies utilized in support of CVIC.