Center for Social Justice Olmos Lecture and Central Valley Symposium, Nov. 3-5 Boalt's Center for Social Justice launched a major initiative to focus attention on—and develop policy strategies for—the social challenges arising in the state's rapidly evolving Central Valley. UC Davis Professor and former California Supreme Court Justice Cruz Reynoso '58 kicked off the three-day symposium on Thursday, November 3, with the Mario G. Olmos Law and Cultural Diversity Memorial Lecture, "In Hard Times: The Search for Social Justice." The symposium sessions on Friday and Saturday, November 4 and 5, organized under the theme "'The New Face of California: The Great Central Valley," included discussions of the many new and enduring justice issues arising in a population that struggles to gain access to the basic services and institutions—employment, health care and education, for instance—that give a hope of social advancement. The center, working in conjunction with UC Merced, aims to build a framework for new research and policy development and to engage scholars, lawyers, activists and other experts in a long-term effort to find and implement solutions. For more information on, please visit the center's symposium home page. (11/7/05)
