Taryn Kiekow, Staff Attorney, Natural Resources Defense Council
The Legal Fight to Block Pebble Mine, Bristol Bay, Alaska
Date: 04/09/2012
Duration: 00:56:45.56
Description: In this Ruth Chance Lecture, Taryn Kiekow, a staff attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), discussed Pebble Mine, a proposed mine near Bristol Bay, Alaska, what’s at stake if it is built and the legal fight she is leading to block it. Pebble Mine would become one of the largest (if not the largest) gold and copper mines in the world if built. The area is very remote though, and would require massive amounts of new infrastructure. This would put an end to the traditional Native lifestyles and culture by diverting and blocking Salmon rivers (currently the largest business in the area) and preventing subsistence hunting (the main source of food).
Sponsor(s): Native American Law Students Association (NALSA); Thelton E. Henderson Center for Social Justice
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Robert Rubin, Director of Litigation, Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area
California Voting Rights Act
Date: 04/02/2012
Duration: 00:39:29.19
Description: Robert Rubin, a civil rights attorney for the past 28 years and the Legal Director for the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area, represents a group of Asian Americans and Latinos who in April 2011, brought a voting rights lawsuit against San Mateo County, the only county in California that elects supervisors by at-large balloting rather than by districts. Mr. Rubin’s lecture is a behind-the-scenes look at the case, which asks a judge to declare the county-wide elections illegal under California law. While Asians Americans and Latinos make up slightly less than 25 percent of San Mateo County’s voting-age population, only one Latino and no Asian Americans have held seats on the five-seat Board of Supervisors since 1995.
Sponsor: Thelton E. Henderson Center for Social Justice
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Shara Davis ‘04, Public Defender, Contra Costa County
The Transformation of a Criminal Trial Attorney: A Personal and Professional Account
Date: 03/12/2012
Description: Shara Davis joined the Contra Costa County Public Defender’s office just out of Boalt Hall in 2004, part of her motivation was to get out of her quiet and reserved comfort zone. In her Ruth Chance lecture, Ms. Davis will trace the arc of her personal and professional transformation, as she went from handling cases that had little to do with representing clients in small misdemeanor cases to representing indigent defendants in high-stakes felony trials and three strikes cases where minor offenses could result in prison sentences of 25 to life.
Brad Bartlett, Managing Attorney, Western Energy Justice Project; Wahleah Jones, Black Mesa Water Coalition; Anna Rondon, Native Outreach Director New Energy Economy; and Caitlin Sislin, North America Program Director Women’s Earth Alliance
The Struggle for Clean Energy on Tribal Lands
Date: 02/27/2012
Duration: 01:09:43.91
Description: Leaders from the Navajo Nation–Wahleah Jones with the Black Mesa Water Coalition, Attorney Brad Bartlett with the Western Energy Justice Project, Anna Rondon, Native Outreach Director for the New Energy Economy, and Caitlin Sislin, North America Program Director for the Women’s Earth Alliance—- discussed the struggle against mining and towards clean energy alternatives on tribal lands. This lecture is part of the 8th Annual Environmental Justice Symposium “Overcoming Invisibility: Environmental Justice in Rural America,” hosted by Students for Environmental and Economic Justice (SEEJ).
Sponsor(s): Students for Environmental & Economic Justice (SEEJ); Native American Law Students Association (NALSA); Thelton E. Henderson Center for Social Justice
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Hon. Lise A. Pearlman (ret.) ’74
People v. Huey Newton and the Election of President Barack Obama
Date: 02/06/2012
Duration: 00:44:01:72
Description: In this Ruth Chance Lecture, attorney, and former judge Lise Pearlman ’74 discussed her book The Sky’s the Limit: People v. Newton, The REAL Trial of the 20th Century? In the book she argues that the death penalty trial of Huey Newton provides the most insight into the American 20th century. Ms. Pearlman contends that had the jury voted for the death penalty, Barack Obama would likely not be President. In 1968, Black Panther co-founder Huey P. Newton was brought to trial for the murder of an Oakland police officer, following a shoot-out. All the major power struggles based on race, class, gender and ideology were at play. The diverse jury found Newton guilty of involuntary manslaughter, which spared him the penalty of death.
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Daniel Werner, Deputy Legal Director, Southern Poverty Law Center
ChallengingAnti-Immigrant Laws: Lessons from Alabama
Date: 02/21/2012
Duration: 1:06:30
Description: Guest Lecturer Dan Werner is a leader in the Southern Poverty Law Center’s campaign to defeat Alabama’s draconian anti-immigrant law. Under the Alabama law, police are allowed to check the immigration status of people they stop and reasonably suspect are in the country unlawfully. Nearly all new contracts between an undocumented immigrant and another person are unenforceable in state court. It is a felony for undocumented immigrants to enter into a “business transaction” with the state of Alabama. Beginning April 1, 2012, employers will be required to use e-verify to determine the immigration status of prospective employees.
Sponsor(s): Berkeley La Raza Law Journal; Thelton E. Henderson Center for Social Justice
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Kimberly Papillon, Esq., Senior Education Specialist, California Judicial Council, Administrative Office of the Courts
Neuroscience & Psychology of Decision-making in the Law: Gender and Racial Preferences and Biases
Date: 01/23/2012
Duration: 01:02:36:97
Description: Kimberly Papillon is a nationally recognized expert on the subject of judicial and legal decision-making. She is an attorney and a Senior Education Specialist at the California Judicial Council’s Administrative Office of the Courts in the Education Division. She serves as the statewide Project Manager for fairness education for judges and court personnel in California. She has delivered over 100 lectures nationwide on the implications of neuroscience, psychology and implicit association in the analysis of judicial fairness to multiple audiences including judges and appellate justices throughout California, the Council of Chief Judges of the State Courts of Appeal, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District, the D.C. Court of Appeals, national judicial organizations and the California State Bar. In the past several months she has delivered lectures to the Los Angeles and San Francisco County District Attorney’s Offices, the United States Department of Justice, and the judiciaries of Vermont, Washington, Nebraska, and Idaho. She is regular faculty at the National Judicial College. She has been appointed to the National Center for State Courts, National Training Team on Implicit Bias a “think tank” for national judicial education. She has produced documentaries on Neuroscience and Judicial Decision-Making which have received national recognition.
Brad Seligman, Attorney, Impact Fund; and Co-Lead Counsel
Wal-Mart v. Dukes, 131 S. Ct. 2541 (2011)
Date: 11/07/2011
Description: In this Ruth Chance lecture, Brad Seligman discussed Wal-Mart v. Dukes, a case decided in the Supreme Court’s most recent term. The decision may effectively cut out consumer and employee claims because it restricts the ability to use class action lawsuits. For over 30 years, Brad Seligman has been a civil rights attorney specializing in class action and individual employment and civil rights litigation. He is the founder of public foundation, the Impact Fund, which provides financial and technical assistance and representation for complex public interest litigation. After serving as the organization’s Executive Director for 17 years, Seligman became Senior Counsel in July 2010. Since 1992, the Impact Fund has granted over $5 million to support such litigation. He has successfully litigated over 50 civil rights class actions and countless individual employment cases including wrongful termination actions.
Henderson Hill Executive Director, Federal Defenders of Western North Carolina Inc.
The North Carolina Racial Justice Act and the Georgia Execution of Troy Davis
Date: 10/24/2011
Duration: 00:57:40:76
Description: In this Ruth Chance lecture, Henderson Hill discussed the political and legal organizing that led to North Carolina’s adoption in 2009 of the Racial Justice Act, a law that allows death-row inmates and defendants facing the death penalty to use statistics and other evidence to show that racial bias played a significant factor in either their sentence or in the prosecutors’ decision to pursue the death penalty. Mr. Hill also discussed the impact of the law and will also compare and contrast the death penalty environment in North Carolina versus Georgia, where Troy Davis was executed on September 21, 2011, despite serious doubts among many about his guilt.
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Kafi D. Blumenfield, President and CEO, Liberty Hill Foundation
Change. Not Charity: Investing in Community Leaders at the Frontlines of Change
Date: 10/10/2011
Duration: 00:56:16.60
Description: Kafi D. Blumenfield is the President and CEO of Liberty Hill Foundation, one of the nation’s most admired social change foundations. Since joining Liberty Hill in 2004, she has focused on expanding Liberty Hill’s impact by strengthening the Foundation’s investment in community leaders on the frontlines of change. During her tenure, Ms. Blumenfield has overseen several critical aspects of the Foundation’s work in Los Angeles including the launch of the Wally Marks Leadership Institute for Change, an intensive on-the-job training for local community organizers; initiatives to increase donor diversity in social justice philanthropy including Change L.A., which is building millennial-generation giving; and a strategic refocusing of Liberty Hill’s nearly $5 million annual grant investments.
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Michael Bien, Managing Partner, Rosen, Bien & Galvan LLP, and Co-Lead Counsel
Brown v. Plata, 131 S. Ct. 1910 (2011)
Date: 09/26/2011
Duration: 01:02:05.07
Description: Michael W. Bien is co-lead counsel in the three-judge court proceeding initiated in 2006 to impose a population cap on the California prison system, the nation’s largest correctional system. The case resulted in an August 2009 Order requiring the prison system to reduce overcrowding within two years to 137.5% of design capacity—a reduction in population of approximately 30-40,000 prisoners. The case went on direct appeal to the United States Supreme Court, which affirmed in a 5-4 decision on May 23, 2011.
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Maeve Elise Brown, Executive Director & Founder, Housing and Economic Rights Advocates
Predatory and Unfair Mortgage Lending: What Happened and Will the Abuses Continue
Date: 09/12/2011
Duration: 01:00:04:63
Description: Federal and state court dockets are overflowing with predatory lending and unfair mortgage lending cases. The abusive practices have deprived hundreds of thousands of Americans of their homes. Unscrupulous lawyers have also been implicated in this under-recognized social justice issue. Maeve Elise Brown, Executive Director and a founder of Housing and Economic Rights Advocates (HERA), will discuss some of the abusive mortgage lending practices that have severely damaged the United States economy. She will also discuss some of the changes to federal laws and some proposed regulations that may serve to curb some abusive practices, and the fair housing implications of these changes.
Sponsor(s): Consumer Advocacy and Protection Society (CAPS) at Berkeley Law
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