Center on Gender Justice & Opportunity at Georgetown Law

Georgetown Giving I just donated to Georgetown University! Join me in supporting Georgetown’s students, faculty and community experience using this short online gift form.

If you’re able, please consider making your year-end gift today.
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Thank you for standing with us.

As the year ends, we’re asking one final time to give to the Center for Gender Justice & Opportunity. In 2025, your support enabled us to equip judges with new tools, expand training programs that address adultification bias, and amplify the voices of girls and women affected by unjust systems.

Georgetown Giving I just donated to Georgetown University! Join me in supporting Georgetown’s students, faculty and community experience using this short online gift form.

But there is so much more ahead—and we can’t do it without your support.

Your gift today helps us meet growing demand for our trainings, tools, and youth-focused programs—and ensures girls and women are seen, heard, and protected.

Join us: secure.advancement.georgetown.edu/s/1686/18/gi...

On this #GivingTuesday, we’re reflecting on the impact we made because of you.

In 2025, we equipped judges with new tools to reduce adultification bias, mapped protections for youth survivors in all 50 states, and expanded our trainings into classrooms

Aligning state laws with federal standards prohibiting sexual assault by police is essential to ensure accountability and prevent abuse of power.

We’re grateful to see this issue gaining attention and to contribute to the collective work of advancing gender and racial justice in policing.

Our analysis, cited in the report, found that as of mid-2025, about 15 states have adopted laws banning police from escaping accountability by claiming that the victim consented to the sexual assault, known as the “consent loophole.”

Welcome - WJC Report

Today, the Council on Criminal Justice released a new report that calls for a stronger nationwide standard prohibiting sexual contact between law enforcement officers and people in custody — a vital reform long overdue.

reports.counciloncj.org/wjc-report/

Roundtable Discussions • Join the Global Conversation Around Trauma CFTE's quarterly panel of public health and non-profit professionals discuss the intersections of mental health, movement, advocacy, philanthropy and more. Free to join.

We're excited to join the Center for Trauma and Embodiment for their next roundtable conversation on Trauma and the Law. Adultification bias touches so many systems: criminal justice, education, health.

Join us next week, 10/14 at 11:30am ET

A trafficking survivor. A system that failed her. Until a judge listened.

Judge Talia Nurse shares how one girl’s story changed the way she approaches children from the bench—and why adultification bias has no place in our justice system.

Learn more: buff.ly/QWydeLL

Adultification bias is an issue we care deeply about. Artists are powerful in highlighting its impact—giving voice to experiences that research alone cannot capture and reminding communities why protecting girlhood matters.

“They expect you to carry yourself as an adult would, when I am still a child.”

A new mural by shanina dionna & We REIGN is a warning and a call: Honor my youth. It celebrates Black girlhood and confronts the adultification bias that too often robs girls of their youth.

www.msn.com/en-us/tv/cel...

These policies ignore DC's local governance and widen inequities for Black children, who are already treated more harshly due to adultification bias, which results in treating Black youth as older and more culpable.

Our young people deserve justice, not harsher punishment.

House approves bill to allow for charging some juveniles as adults in DC - WTOP News The House approved two D.C. crime bills on Tuesday proposed by Republicans as part of their ongoing effort to improve public safety in the District.

The House of Representatives just passed two bills that roll back youth justice in Washington, DC. One lowers the maximum age to try children as adults to just 14, and the other lowers the maximum age young people can be sentenced as children.

wtop.com/dc/2025/09/h...

The Center on Gender Justice & Opportunity at Georgetown Law Hosts Judicial Webinar on Combating Adultification Bias in the Juvenile Justice System - Center for Gender Justice & Opportunity (CGJO) Washington D.C., June 13, 2025 — Yesterday, the Center on Gender Justice & Opportunity at Georgetown Law, in partnership with the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges (NCJFCJ), hosted…

Explore the Bench Card or bring a training to your court:
genderjusticeandopportunity.georgetown.edu/judicial

Black girls are children. But when adultification bias enters the courtroom, that fundamental truth can be erased.

Our Adultification Bias training connects that bias with the systemic unfairness of treating Black girls like adults—and why that undermines the entire justice system.

The Center on Gender Justice & Opportunity at Georgetown Law Hosts Judicial Webinar on Combating Adultification Bias in the Juvenile Justice System - Center for Gender Justice & Opportunity (CGJO) Washington D.C., June 13, 2025 — Yesterday, the Center on Gender Justice & Opportunity at Georgetown Law, in partnership with the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges (NCJFCJ), hosted…

Download the tool or request a training: genderjusticeandopportunity.georgetown.edu/judicial

“Raise your hand if you’ve been called an angry Black woman.” Judge Gayl Carr shares her personal experience—and connects it to how Black girls are perceived in courtrooms across the country.

This is why we are so grateful to NCJFCJ for our partnership on the Adultification Bias Bench Card.

Too often, Black girls are treated as less innocent and more adult than their white peers.

Join us for our next training to unpack adultification bias, its impact, and solutions: https://prosecutorsalliance.org/event/adultification-bias-understanding-its-impact-on-black-girls-in-the-justice-system/

Black girls are disproportionately arrested, punished, and pushed deeper into the system. The data is clear—and it points directly to adultification bias.

Prof. Thalia González, Senior Scholar at the Center, explains why we need tools like the Adultification Bench Card.

More: buff.ly/QWydeLL

PanelPicker | SXSW Conference & Festivals PanelPicker® is the official SXSW user-generated session proposal platform. Enter ideas and vote to help shape Conference programming for SXSW and SXSW EDU.

Last call! Voting for SXSW closes Sunday!

If you haven't already, please take a couple of minutes to vote for our panel: Arresting the Innocent: Punishing Sexual Assault Survivors.

participate.sxsw.com/flow/sxsw/sx...

From prosecuting high-profile cases to securing billion-dollar verdicts for survivors, Kristen brings unmatched courtroom experience and clarity to a system too often stacked against survivors—especially Black women and girls.

Vote by August 24 to help us bring this critical conversation to SXSW!

Vote to bring our panel to SXSW!

Joining us on the SXSW stage is Kristen M. Gibbons Feden—nationally recognized trial attorney and survivor advocate.

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The Center on Gender Justice & Opportunity at Georgetown Law Hosts Judicial Webinar on Combating Adultification Bias in the Juvenile Justice System - Center for Gender Justice & Opportunity (CGJO) Washington D.C., June 13, 2025 — Yesterday, the Center on Gender Justice & Opportunity at Georgetown Law, in partnership with the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges (NCJFCJ), hosted…

Watch our recent Adultification Bias webinar and download the Bench Card to start reflecting on your own practices: genderjusticeandopportunity.georgetown.edu/judicial

“Children are children.” That basic truth is why we have a juvenile justice system. And as Judge Talia Nurse reminds us, it’s a principle that must be applied to every child, regardless of the color of their skin.

The Center on Gender Justice & Opportunity at Georgetown Law Hosts Judicial Webinar on Combating Adultification Bias in the Juvenile Justice System - Center for Gender Justice & Opportunity (CGJO) Washington D.C., June 13, 2025 — Yesterday, the Center on Gender Justice & Opportunity at Georgetown Law, in partnership with the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges (NCJFCJ), hosted…

Want to shift mindsets in your courtroom? Download the Adultification Bias Bench Card or email us to bring a training to your jurisdiction: genderjusticeandopportunity.georgetown.edu/judicial

When judges are trained to recognize adultification bias, their perception of Black girls changes. In our recent Adultification Bias webinar, our Executive Director, Rebecca Epstein, shows the powerful before-and-after impact of the Adultification Bias training.

Her work sparked state-level legislation, earned national awards, and changed public understanding of how police interrogate survivors.

Vote by August 24 to help us bring this critical conversation to SXSW!

Vote to bring our panel to SXSW!


We’re thrilled to feature Rae de Leon, investigative journalist at Reveal, whose groundbreaking reporting and film Victim/Suspect exposed over 230 cases in which a sexual assault report ended in criminal charges.

buff.ly/11V27Yv

From organizing with OUTLaw and the Black Law Student Association to litigating at the intersection of gender and state violence, Rachel brings a sharp lens and fresh energy to the fight for criminalized survivors.

Vote by 8/24 to help us bring this critical conversation to SXSW! buff.ly/11V27Yv

Vote to bring our panel to SXSW!

We’re honored to be joined by Rachel Barkley (they/she)—a fierce advocate and legal strategist with the Battered Women’s Justice Project.

participate.sxsw.com/flow/sxsw/sx...