Workshop:

Innovative Strategies to Combat Exclusionary Zoning

Erin Boggs, Executive Director; Samuel Giffin, Policy & Data Analyst; and Taniqua Huguley, Outreach Director, of Open Communities Alliance in Hartford, CT, will present the various strategies OCA is using to challenge exclusionary zoning in high opportunity suburbs across Connecticut. OCA’s strategies utilize community organizing, creative zoning proposals, and legislative initiatives to create more inclusionary zoning regulations.

Workshop:

Defending Environmental Justice Communities

Communities of color and immigrant communities are at the forefront of the climate and environmental justice movement. This workshop, co-presented by Lawyers for Civil Rights, GreenRoots, Inc. and Alternatives for Community and Environment (ACE) will explore the backdrop of the environmental justice movement, its intersection with access to safe housing, and legal opportunities and challenges moving forward.

Workshop:

Housing Rights for People with a Criminal History

People with a record of incarceration, conviction, and arrest face steep barriers to finding affordable housing, due to screening requirements that – depending on the housing provider – can often end up as a blanket refusal with no consideration of the circumstances of their lives. For this reason, people who have been incarcerated have a 7 to 11 times higher risk of homelessness. This panel will discuss the barriers and impacts that people face along with innovative solutions that are happening around the country and in Massachusetts. Panelists will include housing providers who have tackled this issue, advocates, researchers, and people directly impacted by mass incarceration and its collateral consequences.

Keynote Speaker:

Deborah Archer

Deborah N. Archer is the Jacob K. Javits Professor at New York University, and Professor of Clinical Law and Co-Faculty Director of the Center on Race, Inequality at NYU School of Law. Deborah is also the President of the American Civil Liberties Union and a nationally recognized expert in civil rights, civil liberties, and racial justice. She is a graduate of Yale Law School, where she was awarded the Charles G. Albom Prize, and Smith College. She previously worked as an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., where she litigated in the areas of voting rights, employment discrimination, and school desegregation. She was also a member of the faculty at New York Law School for fifteen years and an associate at the firm Simpson, Thacher & Bartlett. Deborah is also a former chair of the American Association of Law School’s Section on Civil Rights and Section on Minority Groups. She previously served on the New York City Civilian Complaint Review Board, the nation’s oldest and largest police oversight agency, and the 2018 New York City Charter Revision Commission. Deborah received the Otto L. Walter Distinguished Writing Award and the 2014 Haywood Burns/Shanara Guilbert Award from the Northeast People of Color Legal Scholarship Conference. Deborah was recognized by the New York Law Journal as one of New York’s Top Women in the Law. Professor Archer will be introduced by Dean Sudha Setty of the Western New England University School of Law.

Workshop:

Hijabs and Wedding Cakes: A discussion at the intersection of civil rights and religious practices.

Panelists will address the intersection of religion and the protection of civil rights of vulnerable populations in public accommodations, policing and the workplace.

Professor Jennifer Levi will provide an update on Masterpiece Cake Shop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission (2018), where a bakery refused to provide a wedding cake to a gay couple based on the owner’s religious beliefs and preview Fulton v. Philadelphia, a pending Supreme Court case addressing whether faith-based private agencies accepting federal tax dollars can refuse to accept same-sex couples as foster parents.

Civil rights attorney Emma Freeman will address the civil rights implications of Clark v. City of New York, a case where she is representing a class of more than 7000 New York City residents, mostly Muslim women, in a civil rights class action against the NYPD alleging religious discrimination resulting from their being forced to remove religious head coverings while in police custody and for mug shots.

Dr. Marianne Yacobian, a scholar whose research is focused on issues of institutional ethics and anti-Muslimism and Islamophobia, will discuss address the efficacy of EEOC efforts to address embedded biases against religious minorities in the workplace context and examine extra-legal means of creating cultural environments that support respect for all employees.

Panelists:

Professor Jennifer Levi – Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders (GLAD) and faculty Western New England University School of Law, Springfield, Massachusetts

Dr. Marianne Yacobian – Professor of Global Studies, Menlo College, Atherton, California

Attorney Emma Freeman – Emery, Celli, Brinkerholff, Abady, Ward, & Maezel, LLP, New York City

Workshop:

COVID-19: Impacting Women for Years

This session will be a deep-dive discussion into the impact of COVID-19 upon women in the workplace. The dual demands of job, childcare, and other responsibilities are pushing many women at all levels of the organization out of the workforce. Participants will examine and review current research and data about women’s workplace experiences during the pandemic and will discuss strategies and best practices for retaining women in the workforce at levels of the organization.

Katrina Grider (Associate Director, Curriculum, Training and Education, Revolving Funds Division, U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

This workshop was not recorded by request

Workshop:

The Future of Civil Rights: Tools for Advancing Democracy

The focus of the workshop will be an examination of the major trends and issues in fair housing and civil rights today. Participants will not only learn the importance of these issues but why they are strategic for the future of democracy in the United States. This workshop is designed to be informative to any and all participants at the conference but will have significant impact even on those with little civil rights background.

Robert Terrell, Moderator (Boston Housing Authority);
Nadine Cohen (Managing Attorney, Greater Boston Legal Services);
Rahsaan Hall (Director, ACLU of Massachusetts Racial justice Program);
David Harris (Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Racial Justice);
Marvin Martin (Executive Director, Action for Equity).