The theme for this year's panel
on civil rights is protest and resistance. Since the 2016 election, Trump’s
policies and discourse have triggered significant amounts of both. Protests in
defense of immigrants, LGBTQ people, women, the disabled, people of color, the
elderly, environmental sustainability and justice, science, and truth itself
have been organized in mass numbers. Protests have been organized in the
streets, in government buildings and legislative houses, in and around
airports, and at town hall meetings. These protests have in turn triggered
reactions from the familiar overreactions of excessive force and mass arrests
to less familiar, and sometimes shockingly unprecedented, reactions like
legislative proposals to impose severe fines and jail time or to immunize
vigilante violence against protestors. Against this backdrop, this panel calls
for a robust reclamation and resurgence of civil rights practice, teaching, and
scholarship that is intersectional, coalitional, and global in its
conceptualization and execution.
Business meeting at program conclusion.