Criminal defense, environmental law, civil liberties and international law were among the many areas of expertise shared by alums who returned to campus this weekend for a two-day conference called "Advancing Social Justice Through the Law." Over 100 people attended the conference, held in Smith-Buonanno Hall.
The conference was designed to "bring together like-minded people and to try to make connections between what people are doing on campus and outside of campus," said Leo Beletsky MPH'04, one of the conference's organizers and a law student at Temple University.
The conference featured a series of panels on topics such as gay rights, environmental law, criminal defense and drug regulation. The panels included faculty moderators and alumni speakers who work in the relevant fields.
Providence Mayor David Cicilline '83 gave the conference's opening address, discussing his path to politics through legal training and work as a juvenile public defender. Cicilline, who co-founded the Brown Democrats while a student at Brown, called being a public defender a "positive and meaningful experience" but said he felt he could have more of an impact on disadvantaged youth by working in politics.
Cicilline said he ran for mayor in 2002 - as former Providence Mayor Vincent "Buddy" Cianci faced corruption charges - because he "really believed that we needed to do something differently" and that the city would be best served by an open, honest government. Cicilline wanted to use his administration to "show that people's lives could be improved by an honest government," he said.
After discussing his experiences with social justice and the law, Cicilline urged students in the audience to become involved in change. "We need the passion, idealism and energy of young people," he said. "You have enormous power as students of this University to help effect social justice and public policy."
The conference's keynote address was delivered by James Forman '88, a law professor at Georgetown University and former Supreme Court clerk who worked as a juvenile public defender for several years. He was the co-founder of the Maya Angelou Public Charter School in Washington, D.C. - named for Forman's godmother - which actively recruits students involved in the juvenile justice system or the abuse and neglect system.
In his speech, Forman discussed encountering "the broken systems" that lead children to juvenile court, such as bad school systems and violent neighborhoods. He said many of his clients had special education or mental health needs that went unaddressed, even if the child was not sent to jail. These experiences led him to help found a program where children in this system could work in a pizza restaurant and, later, the charter school.
"Our society believes that there is a category of children for whom it is too late," Forman said. "Those are the kids that we thought society was wrong about."
Forman answered a question from the audience about why he chose to found a small school as a result of the problems he experienced as a juvenile defender, instead of working on a larger problem. "No single thing that you do is going to solve the problems of society," he said. "If you had told me when I was an undergrad that I was going to start a school that would only serve 300 students, I would have told you, 'You're crazy! I'm going to fix America!' "
The conference's panels were an opportunity for alums working, volunteering or organizing in certain fields to discuss their work and how students can become involved in effecting change.
One panel, titled "Using the Law to Achieve LGBT Equality: Marriage, Children and Beyond," featured three alums who have been involved in litigation attempting to achieve equal rights for same-sex couples.
The panelists included Wendy Becker '83, a professor of social work at Rhode Island College who was a litigant in a suit calling for out-of-state couples to be able to marry in Massachusetts; Courtney Joslin '94, currently a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and Santa Clara University who previously worked as an attorney at the National Center for Lesbian Rights; and Aaron Schulham '93, the legislative director for Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
The panel discussed an array of issues, such as child adoption for same-sex couples, the proposed Federal Marriage Amendment of 2005 and the effect of civil unions on the legal status of same-sex couples. They also emphasized the importance of public education campaigns, which can build support for or against simultaneous lawsuits.
Becker said activists and lawyers in Rhode Island have coordinated their efforts in public campaigns, legislation and litigation. She said their collaboration has resulted in a common message that "we need to be telling stories about families as opposed to stories about the law."
Noah Wiener '09, one of the student organizers of the conference, said the alums were "excited about the conference" and agreed to attend for free, only accepting payment for reimbursement of travel costs. He said it is beneficial for student groups on campus to be able to link with alums who are working on similar issues.
Getting alums to attend the event was not difficult, Beletsky said. "Everyone loves coming back to Brown," he said. "It just makes sense to people that this is happening at Brown."
The second day of the conference focused mainly on plans for the future of the conference as attendees discussed the need for broad campus dialogue about social justice issues and for networking opportunities between students and alums, Beletsky said.
The conference will be held again next year and is tentatively scheduled for early March. "It was a no-brainer to decide ?to hold it again," Beletsky wrote in an e-mail to The Herald.
Wiener said the conference was funded by grants from the Swearer Center for Public Service, the Brown Alumni Association, the Taubman Center for Public Policy and the Program in Public Health. Student groups who helped organize the event included the Brown chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, Students for Sensible Drug Policy, Queer Alliance and the Social Justice Network, Wiener said.
