Sponsors: NLG San Francisco/Bay Area Chapter, NLG Immigration Justice Committee, International Committee, Freedom Archives
As the legal arm of radical movements for change in the US and in solidarity with global liberation movements, the NLG is charged with leveraging civil and human rights and using litigation and legal work against state repression and towards dismantling state abuses of power. One way to think about this is the ways in which we use the state against the state against repressive policies, institutions and laws and towards protections and wins for movements for social justice, human rights and liberation.
As the NLG takes on meaningful resolutions around ending policing (not just police violence) and abolition (not just mass incarceration), supports the closing of detention centers and addressing of the root causes of forced migration (including but beyond citizenship and stopping deportations), debates have continued about which acts of reform move us towards liberation and which get in the way of it in the long term or even fortify state repression, reach and power.
However, for many on the frontlines of that repression - the targets of police murder and brutality, those incarcerated and formerly incarcerated, those fleeing US-backed wars, dictatorship and the devastation of capitalism and environmental destruction only to be put in additional situations of violence, incarceration and family separation and/or returned to life-threatening ones - waiting for the radical transformation we seek, isn’t an option.
Relief, safety, freedom, accountability for abuses, reparations and alternatives that are resourced and require reallocations of local, state and national budgets are necessary steps towards radical transformation towards liberation. By reframing our work as “using the state against the state” towards reducing immediate suffering and repression on the path towards true justice and liberation, we can find a different compass to inform the ways we engage with the state and how we can strategically use our role as the legal arm of the movements for radical social justice change.
Panelists and Topics:(Read full bios for all panelists here)
EmilyRose Johns (NLG Lawyer) and Needa Bee: Using the law to stop evictions and create commons for unhoused communities
Claude Marks (Freedom Archives) and Jalil Muntaqim (JailHouse Lawyer Emeritus): An inside/outside strategy towards the release of political prisoners in the U.S. & Internationally
James Burch (Anti Police-Terror Project and NLG-SFBA President) and Azadeh Zorabhi, (Underground Scholars): Litigation and Legislation for Liberation and the Uses and Limits of an Inside Strategy against Prisons and Policing
Sirine Shebaya (National Immigration Project) and Abraham Paulos (Black Alliance for Just Immigration): Anti-racism and movement lawyering in the fight for migrant justice: an alternative strategy to neoliberal policies
Kali Akuno (Cooperation Jackson) and Natali Segovia (Water Protector Legal Collective): Towards a People’s Plan for Environmental Justice and Sovereignty
Moderators: Sara Kershnar (NLG-SFBA) and Suzanne Adely (NLG National President)
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