Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Annual Lecture 2025-26: Racial Justice in the Age of Algorithmic Governance

Across the United States, algorithms are gaining a foothold in the criminal legal system. Algorithms are increasingly used to inform police deployment, pretrial release eligibility, and sentencing outcomes, among other consequential decisions. As the use of algorithms increases, so too do calls for public oversight over the state’s use of these technologies. These calls come out of a growing recognition that algorithms can be flawed in ways that can subject individuals to unjust, unlawful, and violent treatment at the hands of the state. In response to mounting pressure, jurisdictions are passing reforms designed to increase public consultation in the processes by which criminal legal institutions procure, implement, and oversee algorithms. These reforms aim to foster transparency and public engagement around current and anticipated algorithmic use in the criminal legal system. 

This lecture will explore the inadequacy of these consultative reforms from a racial justice perspective with a focus on the racially marginalized communities most affected by mass surveillance and incarceration. The lecture will surface how consultative reforms can depoliticize algorithms, inadvertently obscuring how current algorithms operate to facilitate and further justify the carceral management of racially marginalized communities. The talk will then look forward, focusing on empowering racially marginalized communities. Advancing racial justice in an age of algorithmic governance requires adopting reforms oriented toward supporting efforts by these communities to contest and develop strategies to redress how algorithms can reinforce political, economic, and social inequality in society. Taking this step moves us closer to a more inclusive, responsive, and pluralistic iteration of algorithmic governance for all.

Bio: Ngozi Okidegbe is an Associate Professor of Law and Assistant Professor of Computing & Data Sciences. Her focus is in the areas of law and technology, evidence, criminal procedure, and racial justice. Her work examines how the use of predictive technologies in the criminal justice system impacts racially marginalized communities.

Professor Okidegbe is a Faculty Associate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University and an Affiliated Fellow at Information Society Project at Yale Law School. She is also on the program committee of the Privacy Law Scholars’ Conference and serves on the advisory board for the Electronic Privacy Information Center. 

Prior to joining Boston University, Professor Okidegbe was an Assistant Professor of Law at Cardozo School of Law, where she first joined as the inaugural Harold A. Stevens Visiting Assistant Professor in 2019. Before joining Cardozo, Professor Okidegbe served as a law clerk for Justice Mbuyiseli Madlanga of the Constitutional Court of South Africa and for the Justices of the Court of Appeal for Ontario. She also practiced at CaleyWray, a labor law boutique in Toronto.

The lecture will be followed by a drinks reception in Manor Road Building (common area next to the Lecture Theatre) from 18:15 to 19:15. Everyone is welcome to attend.