The Education Justice Project and the Humanities Research Institute are honored to host Elizabeth Vartkessian for a conversation about her book The Deserving: What the Lives of the Condemned Reveal About American Justice. The event will include a discussion panel featuring the author and formerly incarcerated people. Food will be served.
About the book:
Elizabeth Vartkessian works with criminal defense teams as a mitigation specialist. She isn't part of the Innocence Project; her clients are often legally guilty, and often of terrible crimes. Rather, her job is to spend hundreds of hours per case talking to the parents, siblings, teachers, and neighbors of a defendant, situating their crimes in context.
Founder and director of nonprofit mitigation team Advancing Real Change Inc., Vartkessian weaves powerful, gripping stories from her extraordinary career into an inspiring argument for dignity in American justice. Her unique experience has taught her that when personal or generational trauma enters the body, it finds its way out eventually, sometimes through violence.
She contends that we cannot hold her clients solely responsible for their actions, nor can we continue to stomach harsh penalties that deny real justice to perpetrators and victims alike. Amid the Trump administration's record-high executions and calls to expand the use of the death penalty, The Deserving is required reading for a dangerous new era of rollbacks. Vartkessian offers a compelling, hope-filled vision of true rehabilitation replacing retribution.
This is an in-person event that will take place Monday, November 16, 2026 from 4:00 to 6:00 pm. The location is the Murphy Lounge at the University YMCA (1001 S. Wright St, Champaign IL 61820).
You can now pick up your free copy of the book on a book cart in the EJP Main Office (on the second floor of the University YMCA)!
We aim to make our events as accessible as possible! If you have any questions or concerns regarding this event, please contact events@educationjustice.net.