Day 1: November 1, 2010
8:00 a.m.-Welcome and Opening Remarks
8:10 a.m.-9:10 a.m.-The Legacy
Throughout his career, Julius L. Chambers has challenged segregation and the racial and socioeconomic isolation that it causes. This plenary session highlighted Julius' legacy in confronting these issues and the ongoing impacts of segregation and discrimination in public schools and institutions of higher education, in housing, and in the criminal justice system.
- Dean Raymond Pierce, Dean, North Carolina Central University School of Law
- Judith Browne-Dianis, Co-Director, Advancement Project
- James Ferguson, Partner, Ferguson Stein Chambers Gresham & Sumter, P.A.
-
john a. powell
, Executive Director, Kirwan Institute, Ohio State University
9:10 a.m.-Break
9:25 a.m.-10:55 a.m.-The Movement Part One-Concurrent Workshops
In these workshops, attorneys, scholars and grassroots advocates engaged participants in conversations about the strategies and tactics being used to unite around key civil rights issues that perpetuate a legacy of poverty and racial discrimination in education, housing and criminal justice.
Advancement and Fair Opportunity in K-12 Education
With rapid resegregation of K-12 schools, increases in the numbers of low performing, high-poverty schools, and a school to prison pipeline that disproportionately impacts poor and minority children, our nation faces monumental challenges in the effort to ensure that the United States public school system is truly preparing its children for a future of global competitiveness. Our panelists explored multifaceted approaches for guarantee that every child has an opportunity to access a high quality and equal basic education.
- Facilitator: Damon T. Hewitt, Director of Education Practice, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc.
- Beth Glenn, National Education Director, NAACP
- S. Luke Largess, Attorney, Tin Fulton Walker, PLLC
- Dennis Parker, Director, ACLU Racial Justice Program
-
Genevieve Siegel-Hawley, Editor, The Integration Report, The Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles at UCLA and Doctoral Candidate, Urban Schooling at UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies
Residential Integration and Fair Housing in U.S. Neighborhoods
People across the country seek high-performing schools, safe housing, adequate city and county services, and business and employment opportunities for themselves and future generations. Unfortunately, low-income and minority families and communities are often excluded from advancement by persistent residential segregation, housing discrimination, and the lack of affordable housing. Leading experts and activists identified strategic approaches for combating these debilitating challenges.
Racial Equality in The Criminal Justice System
Few people dispute that African Americans and Latinos constitute a disproportionately high percentage of those incarcerated in the nation's jails and prisons. Nor is there a question that these groups generally face harsher penalties for the same crimes committed by their non-minority counterparts. The panelists addressed legal, grassroots and policy efforts to change these trends and ensure equitable criminal justice for all people, regardless of race or socioeconomic status.
- Facilitator: Barbara Fedders, Professor, Juvenile Justice Clinic, University of North Carolina School of Law
- Marshall Dayan, Assistant Federal Public Defender,Western District of PennsylvaniaFederal Public Defenders Office Habeas Unit
- Henderson Hill, Partner, Ferguson Stein Chambers Gresham & Sumter, P.A.
- Reggie Shuford, Director of Law and Policy, Equal Justice Society
11:10 a.m.-12:40 p.m.-The Movement Part Two-Concurrent Workshops
Advancement and Fair Opportunities in Higher Education
As the nation becomes more diverse, our K-12 public schools and our colleges and universities must address the challenge of increasing minority representation in and access to higher education. The panelists identified strategies for ensuring that minority and undocumented students have the opportunity to pursue their dreams of higher education.
- Facilitator: Irving Joyner, Professor, North Carolina Central University School of Law
- Lia Epperson, Associate Professor, American University Washington College of Law
- William Perez, Professor, Claremont Graduate University
- Mike Steinberg, Legal Director, ACLU of Michigan
- William Tobin, Visiting Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, Duke University
Community Inclusion and Environmental Justice
"Municipal exclusion" or "underbounding" originates in our nation's history of racial discrimination and residential segregation. For decades, low-wealth, minority communities intentionally have been underdeveloped economically and isolated socially and physically from neighboring non-minority communities. As a result of this exclusion and discrimination, these communities often fall victim to the negative impacts of landfills and other environmental hazards. The panelists discussed strategies for exposing and combating exclusionary and discriminatory practices and making substantial changes that benefit our nation's cities and towns.
- Facilitator: Peter Gilbert, Community Inclusion Fellow, UNC Center for Civil Rights
- Ilene Jacobs, Litigation Director, California Rural Legal Assistance, Inc
- Ann Joyner, President, Cedar Grove Institute for Sustainable Communities
- Sacoby Wilson, Assistant Research Professor, Institute for Families and Society, University of South Carolina
Social Justice within Prison Walls
Despite being deprived of liberty, U.S. citizens and detained immigrants retain their basic human rights. Of highest priority are addressing the deprivation of due process in immigration detention centers and the protection of health and life in jails and prisons. The panelists explored legal and policy options for ensuring that those incarcerated in U.S. prisons receive protections under federal and international human rights principles.
- Facilitator: Dhamian Blue, Partner, Blue Stephens & Fellers, LLP
- Vanita Gupta, Deputy Legal Director, ACLU New York
- Christine Mumma, Executive Director, North Carolina Center on Actual Innocence
- Paromita Shah, Assistant Director, National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild
- Vincent Southerland, Assistant Counsel, NAACP Legal Defense Fund Criminal Justice Project
12:30 p.m.-Lunch
1:55 p.m.-2:55 p.m.- The Challenge
This plenary session exposed the ideological challenges that advocates face in their efforts to pursue equality and fair representation, economic justice, and employment for all citizens in a "post-racial" America.
3:10 p.m.-4:40 p.m.-The MOVEMENT Part 3-Concurrent Workshops
This workshop session was designed to provide insight into effective, creative, and new strategies for pursuing change on the local, state and national level in voting rights, economic justice and employment opportunity.
Fair and Equal Voting Rights-Roundtable Discussion
With 2010 redistricting beginning and minority vote dilution and felon disenfranchisement remaining as two of the nation's critical voting rights issues, it is imperative that attorneys, advocates and scholars develop strategies for protecting rights to fair and equal representation. Voting rights experts participated in a round roundtable discussion about efforts to guarantee the right to participate in national, state and local democratic processes.
- Facilitator: Kareem Crayton, Professor of Law, University of North Carolina School of Law
- Joaquin Avila, Director, National Voting Rights Advocacy Initiative, Seattle University School of Law
- Sherrilyn Ifill, Professor of Law, University of Maryland School of Law
- Nina Perales, National Senior Counsel, MALDEF
- Terry Smith, Distinguished Research Professor of Law, DePaul University College of Law
Economic Justice for Families and Communities-Roundtable Discussion
There is ever-increasing national tension towards acknowledging both race and class as key factors in determining whether families in America will have equal opportunity to pursue prosperity and justice. Nationwide, advocates, attorneys and scholars aggressively work for solutions that challenge the courts and policymakers to acknowledge poverty as a suspect class and allow for remedies that will truly improve the lives of the nation's poor.
- Facilitator: Diane Standaert, Legislative Counsel, Center for Responsible Lending
- Derek Black, Visiting Professor, University of North Carolina School of Law
- Michael Calhoun, President, Center for Responsible Lending
- Henry A. Freedman, Executive Director, National Center for Law and Economic Justice
- Andrea Harris, President, North Carolina Institute of Minority Economic Development
- Bill Rowe, General Counsel, North Carolina Justice Center
Fair, Equal, and Safe Employment Opportunity
Panelists addressed and offered solutions for some of the nation's most pressing employment issues, including securing workers' rights to organize and collectively bargain, combating wage discrimination and ending hazardous and abusive workplace practices for low-income and immigrant workers. This panel explored the complexities of ensuring fair, equal and safe employment opportunities for workers in the United States.
- Facilitator: April Dawson, Assistant Professor, North Carolina Central University School of Law
- Blanca Bañuelos, Regional Director of Advocacy, California Rural Legal Assistance, Inc
- Carol Brooke, Migrant Worker Attorney, Immigrants Legal Assistance Project, NC Justice Center
- Matthew Colangelo, Counsel, U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division
- Gene Nichol, Professor, University of North Carolina School of Law
Day 2: November 2, 2010
8:30 a.m.-10:00 a.m.-Tactics for the Next Generation-Concurrent Workshops
Cultivating entrepreneurial civil rights careers, mastering and employing new media venues and drawing on advancements in technology are rapidly emerging as critical tactical approaches in social justice lawyering and advocacy.
Civil Rights Entrepreneurship-Roundtable Discussion
Numerous legal and social victories have been accomplished by innovative, risk-taking public interest lawyers applying private-sector business principles to effect positive social change. Today, a growing number of public interest lawyers are becoming social entrepreneurs, combining their legal and management skills to develop socially responsible enterprises that address the educational, legal and economic inequities that prevent justice for all. This social entrepreneurship roundtable featured a candid discussion with lawyers who have developed initiatives with the ultimate goal of bettering our society while still providing economic security for themselves and their employees.
- Facilitator: Benita Jones, Educational Advancement Fellow, UNC Center for Civil Rights
- Andrew Foster, Director, Community Enterprise Clinic Duke University School of Law
- Chris Hornig, Founding Partner, Klein Hornig, LLP
- John Relman, Founding Partner, Relman, Dane & Colfax, PLLC
- Geraldine Sumter, Partner, Ferguson Stein Chambers Gresham & Sumter, P.A.
- Leslie Winner, Executive Director, Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation
New Media and Messaging Social Justice for Social Justice Advocates
Social justice organizations and advocates must reclaim the national discourse on civil rights issue if they hope to have widespread impact on public opinion and policymaking. Communications specialists and media strategists discussed tactics for successfully coupling values-based messaging with the use of traditional and new media outlets to advance social justice agendas.
Demography and Civil Rights Advocacy
Demographic mapping has emerged as a critical component in social justice advocacy. Panelists specializing in social justice demography shared the latest uses of mapping technology in exposing and correcting discriminatory practices like municipal exclusion, redlining, predatory lending and racial gerrymandering.
- Facilitator: Allan Parnell, Vice President, Cedar Grove Institute for Sustainable Communities
-
Delvin Davis
, Senior Research Analyst, Center for Responsible Lending
-
Anthony Fairfax
, President, CensusChannel LLC
- Ben Marsh, Professor of Geography and Environmental Studies, Bucknell University
- Jason Reese, AICP Senior Researcher, Kirwan Institute, Ohio State University
10:15 a.m.-11:45 a.m.-The Charge
Champions for equal rights and opportunity have the responsibility to embrace the civil rights victories -- and setbacks -- of the past and present while remaining steadfast in their commitment to making progress in the "the unfinished work". Julius L. Chambers is but one of numerous civil rights pioneers who committed their lives and careers to the pursuit of justice and to preparing the next generation to continue their fight.
In this closing session, Elaine Jones, former Director-counsel and President of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund; Bryan Stevenson, Executive Director of the Equal Justice Initiative; and Lynn Huntley, President of the Southern Education Foundation reflected on the challenges that civil rights advocates face and issue a national call to harness the momentum of the movement, master innovative strategies for impacting change, and strengthen the rising generation of social justice leaders.
11:45 a.m.-Closing Remarks