Special Education and the School-to-Prison Pipeline: Statutory and Judicial Interventions to Interrupt or Redirect the Pipeline Part 1: Legislation Protecting Students with Disabilities

Stacey Bawtinhimir is the Chief Administrative Law Judge at the NC Office of Administrative Hearings.

Sarah Redfield is Professor Emerita at the University of New Hampshire School of Law and Affiliate Professor at the University of New Hampshire College of Education and Women’s Studies Program. She is a member of the Maine Bar.

Education law is her primary practice and teaching area. Her research and scholarship are focused on diversity and inclusion in the legal profession and along the education pipeline. Her current work continues her long-standing interest in Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion and concentrates on implicit bias and on strategies to interrupt that bias and reduce the negative consequences of its manifestations in legal, medical, education, and workplace environments.

With Judge Bernice Donald, Professor Redfield is Co-Chair of the Criminal Justice Section Implicit Bias Initiative. She also currently serves on several high-level American Bar Association (ABA) diversity initiatives including the Diversity and Inclusion Advisory Council; the ABA Commission on Disability Rights; and the Criminal Justice Section Women’s Task Force.

Professor Redfield is a nationally respected author, presenter, and trainer. She is the editor and chapter author of the ABA book on implicit bias, Enhancing Justice: Reducing Bias, her recent publications also include Implicit Bias, PLI Current and Reversing the School-to-Prison Pipeline Preliminary Report, 47 Memphis Law Review 1. She was a lead author for the ABA Section on Litigation’s Toolbox on Implicit Bias, lead consultant for the ABA project on Achieving an Impartial Jury, and the expert advisor for the State Bar of California’s online bias course. Her recent presentations include various iterations of Implicit Bias, Bias Interruption, and Leadership D&I Training for Arizona State University, the Florida Criminal Justice Summit, U.S. Attorney Offices, and other agencies and non-profits. She has worked for over a decade training judges, lawyers, and educators from all areas of practice and all parts of the country; more recently she has started work with NGOs interested in improving their diversity and equity profile.

Professor Redfield earned her B.A. degree from Mount Holyoke College, her J.D. degree from Northeastern University School of Law, and her LL.M. from Harvard Law School. Prior to her teaching career, Professor Redfield served as Assistant Attorney General and Associate Commissioner of Agriculture for the State of Maine.

Julian Mann III is the Chief Administrative Law Judge at the North Carolina Office of Administrative Hearings.

Judge Breen-Greco is the Past Chair of the American Bar Association’s Judicial Division. She has been appointed a Commissioner of the ABA’s Commission on Domestic and Sexual Violence and formerly served as liaison from the National Association of Women Judges (NAWJ) to the Commission and previously to the ABA’s Task Force on Human Trafficking. She is NAWJ past Vice President of Districts and past Chair of the ABA Judicial Division’s National Conference of the Administrative Law Judiciary (NCALJ), and a past co-chair of the Judicial Division’s Outreach Network Committee.

She has also served as Chair of the Illinois State Bar Association’s (ISBA) Administrative Law Section and the ISBA’s Alternative Dispute Resolution Section, the Illinois Association of Administrative Law Judges (IAALJ), and is a past board member of the National Association of Administrative Law Judges (NAALJ).

Judge Breen-Greco has organized a number of conferences for administrative law judges and has been a faculty member at seminars for administrative law judges. She also developed the first Continuing Legal Education (CLE) program in Illinois for Administrative Law Judges, which was sponsored by IAALJ. Most recently she developed several CLE programs on police/community relations. She is also a certified restorative justice facilitator/peacemaker for peace circles. She has organized a number of seminars on human trafficking and violence against women. She was a presenter on “Human Trafficking in Persons”, to the Mid-East and North Africa Judges (MENA) for the International Association of Women Judges.

Judge Breen-Greco is the recipient of a number of awards and recognition. She is actively involved in mentoring law students at her alma mater, Chicago Kent College of Law, and the Women’s Bar Association of Illinois. She has for a number of years worked with the ABA’s Judicial Clerkship Program and the ABA’s Law School Student Committee, as well as serving as a judge in numerous ABA and Law School mediation/negotiation competitions for law students.

Judge Breen-Greco obtained her J.D. from Chicago Kent College of Law.