Shaking the Foundations

The following information is regarding last year's conference:

Panels

Panel 1-A
Reproductive Technologies, Eugenics, and Policing of Women of Color

Communities of color, and specifically women, have been targeted by the use of medical technologies for experimentation and eugenic control. This panel will investigate historical and contemporary examples of ways that the bodies of women of color in the U.S. and abroad have been and continue to be targeted: through the discriminatory use of dangerous contraceptives and involuntary sterilization; the denial of reproductive health services and experimentation on women of color; and current legislative bills, such as CA AB 76, which was sponsored by a commission that proposed to affirmatively offer sterilization during labor and delivery to women prisoners as "medically necessary."

Confirmed Speakers

  • Vanessa Huang, Justice Now
  • Cara Page, Committee on Women, Population, and the Environment
  • Harriet Washington, Author, Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present

up

Panel 1-B
Writing for Justice

This panel seeks to bring together people with perspectives on both writing and law, to discuss how writing about the legal system and/or by lawyers can make a difference toward greater justice. The basic questions asked by the panel will include the following: How does writing relate to the law, relate to the legal system, relate to justice, relate to people seeking justice? What does legal experience/knowledge/observation bring to writing? How can writing reveal too-often unheard voices, or bring neglected classes to the collective consciousness? How can/has/does writing lead to legal reform? What do writers bring to the fight for justice that traditional lawyers do not, and vice versa?

Confirmed Speakers

  • Steve Bogira, Journalist, Chicago Reader
  • Sara Campos, JD, MFA Candidate at Mills College
  • Skip Horack, JD, Wallace Stegner Fellow in Fiction at Stanford University
  • Robert Weisberg, Edwin E. Huddleson, Jr. Professor of Law at Stanford Law School

up

Panel 2-A
Racial Justice and Hurricane Katrina

This panel will focus on the efforts of on-the-ground activists to address a myriad of human rights issues, including housing, labor, environmental, and other problems that have fallen disproportionately on New Orleans' residents and workers of color. Organizers and activists who have worked in New Orleans will share their experiences in the rebuilding process, and ground their discussion on the broader racial, environmental, and social justice movements that serve as a backdrop to these issues.

Confirmed Speakers

up

Panel 2-B
Future of the Death Penalty

In recent years, capital defense attorneys have successfully won Supreme Court prohibitions on the execution of juveniles and individuals with mental retardation. The fight against capital punishment has continued with challenges based on DNA testing and innocence, the Eighth Amendment bar against cruel and unusual punishment, racial and geographic disparities in administration of the death penalty, and mitigation evidence in individual cases. Yet at the same time, capital punishment threatens to be expanded through the enactment of capital rape statutes. It is a critical moment. This panel will move beyond consideration of legal strategies in isolation and analyze the most effective ways to work toward abolition of capital punishment. In addition to considering each of these areas, the panel will reach broader questions about the efficacy of legal challenges as opposed to political ones, the proper role for grassroots and national efforts in this fight, and the interplay between different strategies.

Confirmed Speakers

up

Panel 3-A
Preserving Voting Rights for All

Voting rights are a cornerstone of our democratic framework. However, in recent years, voting rights in the U.S. have faced numerous challenges. This panel will address several issues related to voting rights, including the security of voting technology that emerged after the 2000 elections; the legacy of the 1965 Voting Rights Act and its recent authorization; efforts by disenfranchised voters, such as felons to regain the vote; and emerging activism, organizing, and concerns for the 2008 elections.

Confirmed Speakers

up

Panel 3-B
Queer Youth and Schools

This panel will explore the reality of queer youth in schools, the harassment that they endure, and the ways in which various laws and policies remedy that harassment. Particular attention will be given to the legal responsibilities imposed on schools and school districts to provide access to resources and to address physical and verbal harassment. Discussion will also focus on several recent lawsuits regarding the denial of access to school facilities for gay-straight alliances at various high schools across the country.

Confirmed Speakers

up

Panel 4-A
Seeds of Justice

Did you know that global poverty, world hunger, environmental disease, economic injustice, and the cultural/spiritual crises of our nations could all be largely eliminated through a simple mixture of land, old-fashioned seeds, manure, a heap of perseverant farmers...and some justice-driven lawyers, of course! Harmful food production technologies and the corporate industrial takeover of the global food supply are threatening the well-being and security of the human race. This panel will hear from legal activists working to re-connect global agriculture to safe, ethical, traditional, community-based farming models by securing land rights for the world's rural poor, defending the ethical treatment of farmed animals, combating the lethal impacts of GM technologies on small farming livelihoods and the stability of agricultural gene pools, and preventing the application of harmful substances and use of dangerous technologies on our communities' precious land. Panel attendees will learn about the strategies that are bringing hope and dignity back to millions of individuals and creatures.

Confirmed Speakers

up

Panel 4-B
Legal Observer Training

Legal observers provide key protection of the rights of protesters (such as in recent and historical anti-war, immigrant rights, civil rights, and labor marches and rallies) against unjust arrest and prosecution. Volunteer attorneys and legal observers help to monitor the behavior of law enforcement officials, note violations of protesters' civil rights, and serve as witnesses and document arrests. In this training, participants will gain the training and skills necessary to serve as a legal observer and to help people to express their political views as fully as possible, without unconstitutional disruption or interference by the government.

Confirmed Speakers

up

© 2008 Shaking the Foundations