On June 8, Melvin C. Hall moderated a panel for the NCORE 2021 (National Conference on Race and Ethnicity) special event, “When the Work is Never Done: A Conversation on Civil Rights & the Law.”

This event gave participants the opportunity to learn from some of the foremost leaders shaping the struggle for civil rights as the country continues to be asked to reckon with its history of racial injustice.

Speakers on the panel included civil rights leader, attorney and author Benjamin Crump, national-recognized civil rights lawyer and public policy leader Tom Perez, and former President & CEO, NAACP and Professor at Harvard Kennedy School Rev. Cornell William Brooks.

Hall is a shareholder partner with the legal firm of Riggs, Abney, Neal, Turpen, Orbison & Lewis. In addition to his law practice, he is a nationally sought-after speaker and lecturer on employment law and civil rights issues. He is currently an adjunct professor at the University of Oklahoma lecturing on employment law and the civil rights movement, and serves on numerous boards including the Arvest Bank Board of Directors, the Executive Committee of the Southwest Center for Human Relations Studies, the Women’s and Gender Studies (WGS) Board of Advocates, and the Board of Visitors of the University of Oklahoma College of Law.

The Southwest Center, a department within the Public and Community Services Division of the College of Continuing Education at the University of Oklahoma. Formed in 1961, the Southwest Center is devoted to the study, understanding, and resolution of human conflict and to promoting understanding and cooperation among people of different racial, ethnic, religious, and economic backgrounds. One of the major programs of the Southwest Center is the Annual National Conference on Race and Ethnicity in American Higher Education (NCORE), which serves as the leading national forum on issues of race and ethnicity in American higher education.