Dean's Speaker Series: Father Gregory Boyle | March 31

Please join us on Thursday, March 31st in Caruso Auditorium Classroom D and via Zoom at 12:30 PM as we continue our Dean's Speaker Series at Pepperdine Caruso School of Law. Our featured guest is Father Gregory Boyle of Homeboy Industries in Los Angeles, California. Father Boyle will present "The Whole Language: The Power of Extravagant Tenderness" in which he will share what he has learned in three decades working with marginalized populations at Homeboy Industries. 

A native Angeleno and Jesuit priest, from 1986 to 1992 Father Boyle served as pastor of Dolores Mission Church in Boyle Heights, then the poorest Catholic parish in Los Angeles that also had the highest concentration of gang activity in the city. Father Boyle witnessed the devastating impact of gang violence on his community during the so-called “decade of death” that began in the late 1980s and peaked at 1,000 gang-related killings in 1992. In the face of law enforcement tactics and criminal justice policies of suppression and mass incarceration as the means to end gang violence, he and parish and community members adopted what was a radical approach at the time: treat gang members as human beings. In 1988 they started what would eventually become Homeboy Industries, which employs and trains former gang members in a range of social enterprises, as well as provides critical services to thousands of men and women who walk through its doors every year seeking a better life. 

Please RSVP at Dean's Speaker Series: Father Boyle

This event is sponsored by the Steven and Kim DeLorenz Speakers Fund.