Why establish the center at Fordham?
We thought it was important not only for a law school but for Fordham Law, which has a history of working on social justice issues, to try to create solutions for the race-related problems we’re seeing in our society. We have some of the most respected and well-published scholars on race in the country, and we wanted to bring our faculty to the table to advance the national conversation we’re having about race and inequality.

What is the role of the center?
The center focuses on the ways in which law not only can be a solution for racial inequality and discrimination but can also work to structure that very inequality. We get at that through scholarship, discourse, policy, and collaborations that look domestically but also globally at issues of race and inequality. We’re also trying to improve legal pedagogy, how we’re preparing students for the diverse society in which they live. And we’re interested in partnering with law firms, institutions, and leaders to address issues of access and opportunity within our profession.

How does the law contribute to discrimination?
We think of the law as something that resolves problems of discrimination. But it has historically worked to structure inequality as well. Think about anti-miscegenation laws, which served to create and reinforce racial categories and prohibited African Americans from marrying whites. Or think about housing and mass incarceration. The law has worked to structure inequality in ways that we often don’t appreciate.

How would you respond to the idea that we live in a post-racial society?
Many people take the fact that we’ve had an African-American president as evidence that race and racial inequality are artifacts of the past. But you need only look at our communities to see that race still matters. We remain heavily segregated as a nation. Indeed, many schools are as segregated as they were before Brown v. Board of Education.

What’s the focus of your scholarship?
I focus on issues of belonging, family, and inequality, and try to understand how race operates across multiple contexts and affects opportunities we experience within them.

You’ve also written about the value of race audits. What are they?
The race audit is an opportunity to involve community members and localities, in particular, in trying to identify and address the sources of racial inequality. We usually think about communities as the canary in the mine, like Flint and Ferguson, protesting and signaling that there’s a problem. But too often we don’t see them as problem solvers. The race audit tries to change that, to create communities of inquiry that involve everyday people working together in a common enterprise focused on racial change and understanding.

Are your students interested in the issues the center raises?
Fordham students are amazing. In my courses, that really comes across in their commitment to the materials and their openness to talking about race. I have students from all walks of life and all ideologies who deeply want to engage with what are some of the hardest issues of our time. I love that and admire them for it.

Edited and condensed from an interview with Stephen Eichinger

Hundreds of soccer fans gathered in Dupont Circle on June 12, 2010, to watch three World Cup matches on two giant TV screens. The event’s principal organizer, Aaron DeNu, GSAS ’06, is working with the German Embassy to put on a similar event on June 26, during the 2014 World Cup.

Eight years ago, Aaron DeNu, GSAS ’06, was living near Fordham’s Rose Hill campus when he saw how soccer fans’ passion for the beautiful game could enliven an already vibrant neighborhood.

“I was fortunate to be living on 187th Street during the 2006 World Cup,” he said. “What an amazing experience it was to be in the heart of Little Italy during the Italian national team’s march to the finals.”

DeNu helped some local merchants coordinate ad hoc viewing parties.

“TVs were pulled into the street, makeshift projectors showed replays at night on Arthur Avenue,” he recalled. “I knew that wherever I would be living during the next World Cup, I would try to re-create the energy I felt during that summer in Belmont.”

In 2010, DeNu made good on his goal.

By then he was living in Washington, D.C., having accepted a job at George Washington University, where he currently works in the student affairs division as associate director of technology, outreach, and events.

Prior to the 2010 World Cup, he and a friend secured the permission, funding, and equipment necessary to stage what they called Soccer in the Circle. The daylong World Cup viewing party drew a multinational crowd of hundreds to D.C.’s Dupont Circle to watch three games, including a U.S.-England match that ended in a 1-1 draw.

“Dupont Circle is right in the heart of D.C.,” DeNu said. “It’s only a few blocks from the White House and it’s surrounded by embassies, so it seemed a natural place to host a World Cup festival.”

So natural that four years later, as the 2014 World Cup is set to kick off in Brazil, DeNu is at it again.

Aaron DeNu, GSAS ’06

He recently secured the support of the German Embassy, which agreed to foot the bill—approximately $30,000, DeNu estimated—to host a one-day World Cup viewing party on June 26, when the U.S. national team will face Germany.

This time, DeNu has far more experience working with local and federal officials to plan free public events in the park.

Following the 2010 World Cup, he founded Dupont Festival, a nonprofit that organizes activities in and around Dupont Circle throughout the year. DeNu is the principal organizer, and there are three other people on the group’s board of directors.

“Since that first World Cup viewing,” he said, “we have hosted more than 40 public projects in the park.”

They’ve organized outdoor film screenings, showing movies on the National Film Registry such as E.T., Casablanca, and Raiders of the Lost Ark. And DeNu has exhibited a flair for promotion.

For a screening of Back to the Future, he rented a DeLorean similar to the one featured in the film, parked it in the park, and attracted passersby by blasting “The Power of Love” and other tunes from the movie on the iconic car’s stereo.

“I’ve had a lot of luck in finding the right mix of pop-cultural activities and tying events in to the calendar,” DeNu said. “On the summer solstice we show a movie. When the fountain is turned on in the spring, we have a fountain day.”

Early this year, DeNu campaigned to get Bill Murray, star of the 1993 filmGroundhog Day, to take part in the Dupont Festival’s annual Groundhog Day celebration. “The D.C. Council even agreed to rename [the holiday]Bill Murray Day if he showed,” DeNu said. Although the actor did not respond, the Huffington Postpublished a piece about DeNu’s effort.

DeNu said the Dupont Festival’s events are about “creative placemaking,” leveraging arts and cultural activities to serve the community and transform the neighborhood around Dupont Circle.

“Our mission is to creatively animate public space,” said DeNu, who has been working closely with the National Park Service, the D.C. Council, the police department, and local businesses.

“We’ve been building trust with folks in town, and they fully understand what we’re trying to do,” he said. “They know that all of the money we raise goes directly to the events.”

The upcoming World Cup viewing party already has the community buzzing.

“Hundreds of people have RSVP’d already,” DeNu said, “so we’re expecting a nice crowd [for the U.S.-Germany match]. We’ll also be showing the Belgium-Korea match that afternoon. We have two large, super-high-definition LED screens that are glare-proof and weather-proof.”

Having the support of the German Embassy is especially satisfying for DeNu, whose paternal great-grandfather immigrated to the United States from Baden, Germany, and settled in Indianapolis.

DeNu grew up in Milford, Ohio, not far from Cincinnati. He was a record-setting striker on the Milford High School soccer team and went on to play for four years at Wilmington College of Ohio, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in computer science and history.

In 2004, he continued his interdisciplinary studies at Fordham’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, focusing in particular on the effects of technology on human interaction.

“I specifically sought out Fordham,” he said, “for its interdisciplinary master’s degree program.”

DeNu also said his time in New York City inspired his interest in creative placemaking.

“Living in New York City accelerated that for me. Walking around the Rose Hill campus and seeing all the different activities there and in the Bronx and in Manhattan, going to events in Central Park and Bryant Park, that was a real inspiration,” he said.

“Being at Fordham and being able to see all that stuff and see how it works was a degree in itself.”