EQUAL JUSTICE SOCIETY CONFERENCE SCHEDULE

10:15 Opening Remarks

10:30 Panel 1: The Conservative Take-Over of the Judiciary: What's at
Stake
Confirmed Panelists:
Diane Gross,Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law
Susan Lerner, Justice For All Project
Moderator: Norman Spaulding

11:30 Panel 2: The Statewide and National Implications of Connerly's
Race Information Ban
Confirmed Panelists:
Maria Blanco, MALDEF
Jay Ziegler, Coalition for an Informed California campaign
Martin Martinez, California Pan-Ethnic Health Network
Moderator: Prof. Margaret Russell, Santa Clara School of Law

12:15 Closing Remarks

Susan K. Serrano
Project Director
(415) 543-9444 phone
(415) 543-0296 fax
sserrano@lccr.com

Coalitions at the Crossroads: Discussion Panels
Coalitions at the Crossroads will feature seven panels, each 1 hour 15 minutes in length. Each panel is a new approach to coalition building at its best and at its worst.

Race, Class and the Environment - Luke Cole, Abby Reyes, and Rose Braz
Race, Class, and the Environment aims to explore four areas where coalitions have developed as a result of intersecting environmental, racial, community, and economic issues. Each speaker will address the coalitional work in which she or he has taken part, identify some of the challenges and difficulties presented by particular circumstances, and engage in a conversation with the other panelists. The four areas of inquiry will include:
- Traditional communities, land claims, and resource exploitation;
- Environmental racism and the prison-industrial complex;
- Labor and the environment; and
- Urbanization, sprawl, smart growth, and environmental justice.

Civil Rights, Human Rights and Law in the 21st Century - Chris Arriola, Kevin Johnson and Eric Yamamoto
Civil Rights, Human Rights, and Law in the 21st Century will explore areas in which coalitions have developed as a result of overlapping or intersecting interests in the civil rights and human rights legal movements and how those intersections may change in a new century.

Constructing Nations - Nikki Fortunato Bas, Rhonda Ramiro,and Mililani Trask
Constructing nations will consider the formation of national identity around notions of belonging and exclusion. Panelists will address the possibilities and problems of forming effective coalitions around national identities both within the U.S. and across various borders. In addressing the issue of identity as tied to citizenship, the panel will address intersectional issues including indigenous environmental movements and human rights violations in global labor markets.

Caught in the System - Scott Cummings, Stephen Rosenbaum, and Cynthia Chandler
Caught in the System will address the ways that members of particular communities are regulated by systems of power and control. This panel will explore how mechanisms of organization which are designed to improve our lives end up creating intersectional axes of oppression. Speakers will address intersectional issues such as the prison industrial complex, disability access and obstacles to fair housing.

Community Response to Crisis: Criminalizing Reproductive Rights - Marlene Fried, Jen Parker, and Shanno Minter
Celebrating the 30th anniversary of Roe v. Wade it is apparent that the battle to secure full reproductive rights is not over. Denied access to abortion, forced sterilization, and the criminalization of reproductive freedom disproportionately affects under-represented communities. Individuals, because of their sexual orientation are denied the right to raise children, and others, because of their race are denied the right to choose, or not to choose, to procreate. This panel will explore the intersection of communities fighting to secure safe reproductive freedom.

Desegregating Higher Education - Sumi Cho, William Kidder, Alegria De La Cruz, and Eva Patterson
Scheduled only ten days after the Supreme Court will hear the landmark affirmative action cases Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger, this panel will seek to foster dialogue about coalitions that have formed - as well as those that need to be formed- in order to integrate higher education. The speakers will attempt to find foundations for coalition building in the intersections between social science, legal scholarship, political work and student activism.

• The intersections between legal scholarship and social science in defending affirmative action.
• Student perspectives on coalitions between law schools that have created nationwide activism in support of affirmative action
• Affirmative Action as a centerpiece for coalitions seeking to build the new civil rights movement
• Community coalition building to defend affirmative action in public education.