2020-21 Symposium
“Glass Ceilings, Glass Walls: Intersections in Legal Gender Equality and Voting Rights One Hundred Years After the Nineteenth Amendment”
Thursday, April 1 (starts at 1:00pm) – Friday, April 2, 2021 (starts at 9:00am)
Register Now (Must Register for Each Day Separately):
z.umn.edu/MLRSymposium2021Day1
z.umn.edu/MLRSymposium2021Day2
Symposium Schedule Available Here
Detailed Information on each Panel Available Here
For any questions, email szumi002@umn.edu.
The Nineteenth Amendment was a milestone for women’s rights but has often been criticized for being passed at the expense of people of color. Our 2020-21 Symposium looks back on the one hundred years since women were given the right to vote using a rough chronological approach. Day 1 opens with a historical overview of the Nineteenth Amendment, discussing who contributed to its ratification and who was left out after its passage. This background will create a basis for our subsequent gender equality conversations, focusing on Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation during Day 1, and the modern legal feminist agenda on Day 2. Day 2 begins with Keynote speaker Desmond Meade, who will discuss his role in fighting for legislative change in Florida to restore the right to vote to 1.4 million Floridians, and culminates in a panel discussing the current state of voting rights.
Registration for the Symposium is free and CLE credits are expected.
Symposium Speakers and Authors
Keynote Speaker: Desmond Meade, President and Executive Director of Florida Rights Restoration Coalition (FRRC)
As President and Executive Director of FRRC, which is recognized for its work on voting and criminal justice reform issues, Desmond led the FRRC to a historic victory in 2018 with the successful passage of Amendment 4, a grassroots citizen’s initiative which restored voting rights to over 1.4 million Floridians with past felony convictions. Amendment 4 represented the single largest expansion of voting rights in the United States in half a century and brought an end to 150 years of a Jim Crow-era law in Florida. Desmond is the author of the book “Let My People Vote” which shares the great journey of him crossing the finish line in restoring 1.8 million citizens’ right to vote.
Kat Calvin, Founder and Executive Director of Spread The Vote and Co-Founder and CEO of the Project ID Action Fund
Jessica Clarke, Professor of Law and FedEx Research Professor and Co-Director of the George Barrett Social Justice Program, Vanderbilt Law School
Jill Elaine Hasday, Distinguished McKnight University Professor and Centennial Professor in Law, University of Minnesota Law School
Phylicia H. Hill, Counsel, Economic Justice Project, Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law
Martha S. Jones, Society of Black Alumni Presidential Professor and Professor of History and the SNF Agora Institute, John Hopkins University
Serena Mayeri, Professor of Law and History, University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School
Terry Ao Minnis, Senior Director of Census and Voting Programs, Asian Americans Advancing Justice – AAJC, and Senior Fellow, Democracy Fund
Tracy A. Thomas, Seiberling Chair of Constitutional Law and Director of the Center for Constitutional Law, University of Akron School of Law
Kyle C Velte, Associate Professor of Law, University of Kansas School of Law
Joan C. Williams, Distinguished Professor of Law, Hastings Foundation Chair and Director of the Center for WorkLife Law at the University of California, Hastings Law