Former Harvard Law School Dean Martha Minow tackles the unintended effects of technology on those already impacted by discrimination and disadvantage.

Why you should listen

Influenced by growing up during the turbulent 1960s in the United States, Martha Minow devoted herself early in her academic career to fighting injustice. She became involved in the school desegregation and school finance equalization battles of the 1970s and acquired a law degree to "get a seat at the table" to work on these and other issues.

During her law career, Minow has worked for Justice Thurgood Marshall, architect of litigation for civil rights, and Judge David Bazelon, a judicial leader for disadvantaged people. As a law teacher and dean of a leading law school, she has also worked on access to justice for low-income individuals and human rights around the world.  While addressing global challenges to democracy, rights and decency, she discovered legal neglect of and opportunities for forgiveness of debt, fines and wrongdoing -- which she believes are all the more crucial in this time of pandemic, exposing ever more people to burdensome debts, incarceration that jeopardizes public health and the traps made by law itself.

Martha Minow’s TED talk

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The final session of TEDWomen 2019 is here! We can’t believe it; we won’t believe. But, if we must close out these three incredible days, it’s good we did it by hearing from a diverse range of “wayfinders” — incredible women who are using their wisdom and insight to light the way forward, tackle global […]

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