Written by|Tejas Patel

Pictures by|Tyler Webb

On December 9th Junior Matt Capece was invited to the Legislative Office Building in Hartford to participate in a public hearing about, “The Mischief that Implicit Biases play in Lawmaking, Policy and Decision-Making.” This forum was open to the public. The Commission on Children and the Connecticut Bar Association were the groups that set this meeting together. The forum was moderated by John Dankosky. He is the host of, “Where We Live,” on WNPR News. He was the moderator because some of the parts will be aired on the show.  Only 25-30 state leaders and youths who were invited.

The forum started with a keynote from Professor Kimberly Norwood. She is a faculty member of a law school called  Washington University, which is located in St. Louis, Missouri. She is considered an international expert on bias. This was transitioned to Mr. Dankosky who was the moderator. Both Mr.Dankosky and Mrs. Norwood guided the discussions.

The whole point of this forum was to learn and discuss how bias can change how decisions are made. One of three students chosen from the state was Junior Matt Capece. One of the three came from Westbrook and another from East Haven. Matt explained the whole idea in more detail,” It was a responsive meeting, mostly about bias and racism. I learned a lot about bias that I didn’t know before. One that really stood out to me is the fact that babies as young as 1 year already have bias. The biggest part of the whole discussion was the fact that there is good and bad bias. Knowing the difference and learning how to understand the difference.” Matt enjoyed the experience even more than he thought he would, “If I could go again I definitely would because of the fact that  it was a learning experience about more than just a subject. Bias is a big part of life and if the whole school can get an understanding like I did, it would be a really good thing.”