Rachel McMillian, assistant professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Illinois, partners with the Ohio Innocence Project to invite exonerees, a person who was convicted of a crime and later officially declared innocent of that crime, to her classroom to educate her students about wrongful incarceration.
Today, we hear her story.
The following transcript is lightly edited for length and clarity.
Rachel McMillian: I got connected to the Ohio Innocence Project through my high school students. Actually, I was a high school teacher in Cincinnati, Ohio, high school social studies teacher. And my students were...they were responsible for doing civics projects in the community and around the city. And I had a group of students who were interested in learning more about people who were incarcerated. And so I reached out to a lawyer at Ohio Innocence Project, Jennifer Bergeron, and she came and spoke to my students. And then they got really invested hearing the stories about the exonerees.
I want these stories in classrooms to show them how we continue to love and care for each other and build relationships, and survive and thrive.Rachel McMillan
And this particular group of students organized a basketball tournament to raise money for the Ohio Innocence Project. And Dean Gillespie and Robert McClendon showed up and surprised the kids and surprised me. And since then, Dean and I are great friends. Robert and I have become great friends. It's been I don't know how long now, but since then, they've been coming to my classroom, working alongside my students. They, my students, and some of the exonerees did an art exhibit probably about six years ago. So it's a long-standing relationship. And I've become great friends with many of the exonerees.
Mary Evans: And so even though your students were learning about incarceration, I wonder what made them choose the exoneration process or wrongfully convicted? Was it a choice that they decided, or did you already kind of like know about these kinds of things happening and talking to your students about it? Because there are a whole lot of different types of incarceration, you could talk about. So I'm curious to know, like, why that specific facet of the incarceration or judicial system was chosen?
McMillian: Yeah, I think for me that was a choice that I made. I had never really studied wrongful incarceration until OIP, and until meeting Dean and Robert, I...my understanding of incarceration was definitely different prior to to meeting them. And so that was a decision I made..partly proximity to University of Cincinnati with my school and then partly just trying to find attorneys in the area who could talk to my students. And so, it kind of happened by chance. Many of my students have experience with incarceration, whether through family members or themselves. Myself, I have experience with incarceration, not myself personally, but through loved ones. And so, yeah, this was my, I guess, my first introduction to wrongful incarceration, but it definitely made me think about it differently. I want these stories in classrooms to show them how we continue to love and care for each other and build relationships, and survive and thrive. And in the midst of all of this madness that we can continue impacting people for the better.
Support for ReEntry Stories comes from The Montgomery County Office of Reentry and the Eichelberger Center for Community Voices at WYSO.
