Please join us for an evening with the elegant co-owner of Lola’s Restaurant, Gayle “Lola”Patric

The immigrant suite: hey xenophobe! who you calling a foreigner? by hattie gossett

The immigrant suite: hey xenophobe! who you calling a foreigner? by hattie gossett

About The Speaker:

Ms. hattie gossett is a spoken word performer, poet, essayist, fiction writer and author of Presenting sister noblues, co-founding editor of Essence magazine and former teacher, who is rooted in new and old American traditions of talking back to power with satire, absurdity, humor and zany rhythms. With these new poems, set in her uptown NYC neighborhood “where the dominican republic meets the republic of harlem,” she gleefully dumps out all the melting pots.

During Women’s History month please join us for this entertaining evening.

Health Concerns within the Community

Health Concerns within the Community

About The Speaker:

Dr. Brown Clinton D. Brown, M.D., is an Associate Professor of Medicine, Medical Director of Parkside (Ambulatory) Hemodialysis, Director of the Center for Health Disparities, and Director of the Hyperlipidemia Clinic at the State University of New York Downstate Medical Center, Brooklyn, NY. He is a Board Certified Clinical Lipidologist. and Chairman of the Nutrition Committee at SUNY Downstate.

Dr. Brown’s clinical and research interests are in the areas of lipid disorders, arteriosclerosis, diabetes, hypertension, obesity, kidney disease, and hemorheology. He has served as Principal Investigator for many clinical trials that involve treatment of high blood cholesterol, hypertension and the anemia of kidney disease. He has published several research manuscripts and abstracts for peer review-journals.

Why New York City Should Be The Center of America's Progressive Movement

Hispanic Community in U.S & Immigration Legislation

Sweet Land of Liberty: The Unfinished Struggle for Racial Equality in the North

Punishment and Inequality in America

This lecture will summarize several of the main findings in Bruce Western’s recently published book, Punishment and Inequality In America, on the growth and consequences of incarceration in America over the last three decades. He will present evidence that incarceration has become a normal event in the lives of disadvantaged African American men. Among those born since the late 1960s, serving time in prison has become more likely than college graduation or the military.

The emergence of mass imprisonment has contributed to a uniquely American form of social inequality. Imprisonment affects inequality in two main ways: First, by concealing large numbers of poor black men from conventional statistics on their economic well-being; second, by diminishing the economic opportunities of ex-prisoners after release. These developments indicate that the prison boom has increased inequalities among blacks, and significantly diminished the quality of American citizenship.

About The Speakers:

Bruce Western is a Professor of Sociology at Princeton University. He has written extensively about the growth of the American penal system and its effects on social and economic inequality. Professor Western is the author of Punishment and Inequality in America and Between Class and Market. His research has been published in leading academic journals including the American Sociological Review, the American Journal of Sociology, the American Political Science Review, and the American Journal of Political Science.

Halting The Meltdown: A Conversation About Mental Health in Urban Communities

There’s a silent killer stalking urban communities and it’s called mental illness. People of color are caught in a cycle of societal conditions and personal pain that puts them at a greater risk for suffering from mental health problems, and triggers destructive behavior. Yet the stigma, lack of understanding and limited resources prevent them from recognizing their symptoms and seeking the help they need. It’s crucial that we confront our mental health issues, discuss new approaches, and identify solutions to this community plague.

About The Speakers:

Terri Williams is President and Founder of The Terrie Williams Agency, one of the country’s most successful public relations and communications firms. Ms. Williams is also the President and Founder of The Stay Strong Foundation, a national non-profit organization designed to educate and encourage American youths. She is also a well-published author. Ms. Williams has a B.A. in Psychology and Sociology from Brandeis University and an M.S. in Social Work from Columbia University.

Dr. Denese Shervington is an Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and Director of Psychiatry at Harlem Hospital. Dr. Shervington has served as the statewide Medical Director of Family Planning for Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals, Office of Public Health. Dr. Shervington is a graduate of New York University School of Medicine. She completed her residence in Psychiatry at the University of California San Francisco. She is also the author of several books.

Elaine Rivera was a correspondent at the New York bureau of Time Magazine. Before joining Time Magazine Ms. Rivera was a special project reporter at New York Newsday, where she covered immigration and urban issues.

The Unspoken Conflict Between Latinos and Blacks

From Grassroots Leader To New York City Council Member: A Conversation and Case Study

What does it take for working-class and middle-class New Yorkers to get elected to the New York City Council? Council Member Darlene Mealy was elected to the New York City Council in 2006. It was her first attempt to run for a seat on the City Council. What kind of background does a candidate need? How is a campaign structured? What role do unions and special interest groups play in this process? How does a freshman council member deal with the “legislative learning curve,” select a staff, and the political realities of constituent casework?

About The Speakers:
Frankie Edozien is a Political Reporter for the New York Post. Mr. Edozien is a City Hall Reporter covering local legislative affairs and politics. Prior to that, he worked in broadcast journalism at ABC News and BET News.

Manolin Tirado is an Adjunct Professor in the School of Business at Metropolitan College of New York. Mr. Tirado has over 20 years of experience in public administration. He has worked as a political consultant for several city and state elected officials.

Darlene Mealy took office as the Council Member in Brooklyn’s 41st District in January 2006. She has served as a community leader in Bedford-Stuyvesant. Prior to her election to the city council, Council Member Mealy was employed at the New York City Transit Authority for seventeen years in the Department of Buses Technical Services Division.

The Disposable American: Layoffs and Their Consequences

Layoffs in America—their questionable necessity, their overuse, and their devastating impact on individuals at all income levels—are accelerating. As a consequence, the notion of “job security” as has been redefined and unraveling since its heyday during the 1950s and 1960s for corporate executives and workers.

Are layoffs counterproductive? Do they promote efficiency or profitability in the long term? Does the acquiescence to layoffs encourage wasteful mergers, outsourcing, the shifting of production abroad, the loss of union protection, and wage stagnation? And what are the mental health implications of layoffs? How do we describe and assess the significant psychological damage and trauma that a layoff invariably inflicts, even on those who are eventually reemployed?

About The Speaker:
Louis Uchitelle is an Economics Writer at The New York Times and is the author of The Disposable American: Layoffs and Their Consequences. Mr. Uchitelle has covered economics for The New York Times since 1987, focusing on labor and business issues and traveling widely in the United States. He shared a George Polk award for a series of seven articles, “The Downsizing of America,” published in The New York Times in 1996, that explored the layoff phenomenon.

Mr. Uchitelle was a visiting scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation in New York in 2002-2003 and he taught journalism for many years at Columbia University’s School of General Studies. Before joining The New York Times, Mr. Uchitelle worked for The Associated Press as a reporter, editor, and foreign correspondent in Latin America. He and his wife, Joan Uchitelle, live in Scarsdale, New York. They have two grown daughters.

A Journalist’s Struggle At Home and Abroad

New York City is regarded as the media capital of the world. It is also a city that is the social equivalent of Noah’s Ark. Every ethnic group that exists in the world literally has a presence here. To a large degree, how we assess events in New York City and throughout the world is refracted through the lens of journalism—print, broadcast, and new media. It is in this journalistic milieu and social caldron that Les Payne has worked as a journalist and editor for Newsday. He is part of a continuum of pioneer Black-American journalists who, first and foremost, has dedicated himself to high journalistic standards. In this lecture, Mr. Payne will take a look back at his career and reflect on his work and struggles as a journalist.

About The Speaker:
Les Payne is a syndicated Newsday columnist for the Tribune News Service. Mr. Payne is the former Associate Editor for Newsday.

As a reporter, Mr. Payne won a Pulitzer Prize in 1974, along with other Newsday reporters, for a 33-part series, “The Heroin Trail,” which traced the international flow of heroin to the New York City area. In his capacity as an investigative reporter, he has covered Long Island migrant farm workers, involuntary sterilization, illegal immigrants, the Black Panther Party, the Symbionese Liberation Army, the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and many seminal figures from the 1970s to date.

Mr. Payne has been the recipient of innumerable awards in journalism and the recipient of three honorary doctorates. He has appeared on numerous radio and television shows. He is also the founder and former president of the National Association of Black Journalists and presently working on a biography of Malcolm X.

A Strategic Approach To Fighting Hunger

According to the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, deaths from heart disease are 1.2 times higher in low-income neighborhoods than in wealthy neighborhoods; deaths related to diabetes and high blood pressure are 3.3 times higher. Complications from diabetes are the fourth largest cause of death in New York City’s poorest communities. The links between poverty and these nutrition problems are clear, as lower-income people are often likely to spend their food dollars on food that is inexpensive, but high in sugar and fats and low in nutritional value.

Improving the lives of hungry men, women, and children requires more than just providing food. City Harvest’s core work of rescuing and distributing food to New York’s hungry men, women, and children has expanded to include not just more food, but more nutritious foods that their clients need along with education on nutrition, cooking, and budgeting in order to fulfill the organization’s mission of ending hunger in communities throughout New York City.

About The Speaker:
Jilly Stephens is the Executive Director of City Harvest. She leads the organization’s efforts to end hunger in communities throughout New York City. Ms. Stephens joined City Harvest in 2004 as Chief of Program Services and was named Executive Director in 2006. Over the past two years she has developed and implemented several key initiatives including Mobile Market, which provides fresh produce to low-income New Yorkers in a greenmarket style setting; Fruit Bowl, which provides fresh fruit to preschoolers on an ongoing basis; as well as expanding City Harvest’s nutrition education efforts.

When Affirmative Action Was White

Policy decisions dealing with welfare, work, and war during the 1930s and the 1940s excluded, or indifferently treated, the vast majority of African Americans. Inequality across racial lines increased at the insistence of southern representatives in Congress, with the complicity of their congressional colleagues. As a result of the legislation they passed, blacks became even more significantly disadvantaged when a modern American middle class was fashioned during  and after the Second World War. Public policy, including affirmative action, has insufficiently taken this into account. Doing so repositions how we think, talk, and act about affirmative action today.

About The Speaker:
Ira Katznelson is the Ruggles Professor of Political Science and History at Columbia University. Professor Katznelson is author of the recently published When Affirmative Action Was White. Professor Katznelson is an Americanist whose work has straddled comparative politics and political theory, as well as political and social history. His books include Liberalism’s Crooked Circle; Shaped by War and Trade: International Influences on American Political Development; Political Science: The State of the Discipline, Desolation and Enlightenment; Political Knowledge After Total War; Totalitarianism and the Holocaust; Black Men, White Cities; City Trenches: Urban Politics and the Patterning of Class in the United States; Schooling  for All;  and Working Class Formation. Professor Katznelson has served as President of the Section on Politics and History of the American Political Science Association and the President of the Social Science History Association. He also co-edits the "Princeton Series in American Politics," and serves as a member of the Board of Trustees of the Russell Sage Foundation.

Is Race-Based Medicine Good for Us?

In June 2005, the FDA approved the first race-based drug, BiDil (bye-DILL), to treat heart failure specifically in African Americans. The theory behind racial pharmacogenomics is that the reason for higher disease and mortality rates among African Americans lies in genetic differences among racial groups, either in a predisposition to illness or in responses to medications. There is no consensus among African Americans about the significance and utility of race consciousness in pharmaceuticals for addressing health inequities based on race. Some African American scholars, scientists, physicians, and advocates have condemned the development as a scientifically flawed and commercially corrupted misuse of biomedical research on health inequities that threatens to reinforce dangerous biological understandings of race. Conversely, other scholars have supported racial therapeutics precisely to redress past racial discrimination and fulfill longstanding demands for science to attend to the health needs of African-Americans. For example, the trial to test the efficacy of BiDil in treating heart failure in African Americans was cosponsored by the Association of Black Cardiologists and supported by the National Medical Association and members of the Black Congressional Caucus. Do race-specific medications reinforce harmful and unscientific concepts of "race" or attend to the particular needs of African Americans who historically have been excluded from clinical trials and the best health care?

About The Speaker:
Dorothy Roberts is the Kirkland & Ellis Professor at Northwestern University School of Law. Professor Roberts holds joints appointments in the Departments of African American Studies and Sociology and as a faculty fellow at the Institute for Policy Research. She is the author of Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty and Shattered Bonds: The Color of Child Welfare. Professor Roberts has written extensively on the interplay of gender, race, and class in legal issues concerning reproduction, bioethics, and child welfare.

How Can We Solve The Academic Achievement Gap In Urban Schools?

Would an expanded federal role in kindergarten to twelfth (K-12) grade education make an important difference in eliminating the achievement gap in urban schools, as well as raising academic performance in general? The argument that the federal government needs to dramatically expand research and development spending in the K-12 area, similar to what now takes places in the health care and defense industries, will be explored as a solution to the achievement gap in urban schools.

About The Speaker:
Chris Whittle is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Edison Schools. Edison Schools partners with school districts, charter boards, and states to raise educational outcomes through its research-based school design and curriculum, achievement management solutions, professional development, and extended learning programs. Prior to founding Edison Schools in 1992, Mr. Whittle was founder and chairman of Whittle Communications, one of America’s largest student publishers. From 1979 to 1986, he was also chairman and publisher of Esquire Magazine. Raised in Tennessee, Mr. Whittle graduated from the University of Tennessee where he now funds a number of scholarships for exceptional students.

The Crisis of Black Leadership

As we move into the first decade of the 21st Century, what’s in store for Black America, and where are the leaders capable of giving it guidance toward empowerment?  For more than a generation, the author and journalist Herb Boyd has been a keen observer of black social and political thought and he will lead us in a discussion on the current status of black leadership, particularly the success and failures of such notables as the Reverend Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Minister Louis Farrakhan, Kweisi Mfume, and Senator Barack Obama.

About The Speaker:
Herb Boyd is an award winning author and journalist who has published sixteen books and innumerable articles for national magazines and newspapers. Mr. Boyd is the co-editor, along with Robert Allen, of Brotherman: The Odyssey of Black Men in America—An Anthology, which won the American Book Award for non-fiction. Among his most popular books are: Black Panthers for Beginners; Autobiography of a People: Three Centuries of African American History By Those Who Lived; Race and Resistance: African Americans in the 21st Century; We Shall Overcome: A History of the Civil Rights Movement; and Pound for Pound: The Life and Times of Sugar Ray Robinson.  Mr. Boyd is currently working on an autobiography of the musician Yusef Lateef.

Employment Discrimination In New York City

Racial progress since the 1960s has lead some researchers and policy makers to proclaim that the problem of discrimination is solved. But the debates about discrimination have been obscured by a lack of reliable evidence. In this study ("The Mark of a Criminal Record"), we adopt an experimental audit approach to formally test patterns of discrimination in the low-wage labor market of New York City. By using matched teams of individuals to apply for real entry-level jobs, it becomes possible to directly measure the extent to which race/ethnicity, in the absence of other disqualifying characteristics, reduce employment opportunities among equally qualified applicants. We find that whites are systemically favored over black and Latino job seekers. Indeed, the effect of discrimination is so large that white job seekers just released from prison do no worse than blacks without criminal records. Relying on both quantitative and qualitative data from our testers' experiences, this study presents striking evidence of the continuing significance of race in shaping the employment opportunities of low-wage workers.

About The Speaker:
Devah Pager is an Assistant Professor of Sociology and Faculty Associate of the Office of Population Research at Princeton University. Professor Pager's research and teaching focus on institutions affecting racial stratification, primarily in the realm of education, labor markets, and the criminal justice system. Pager's current research involves a series of field experiments studying discrimination against minorities and ex-offenders in the low-wage market. Her recent publications include "Walking the Talk: What Employers Say Versus What They Do," published in the American Sociological Review and "The Mark of a Criminal Record," published in the American Journal of Sociology.

A Special Reading of The Pride: A Novel By Wallace Ford

Wallace Ford explodes onto the fiction scene, taking readers on an unforgettable journey into the world of the black elite as told through the story of their lives in the pursuit of power, love, money with generous portions of passion, greed, and occasional decadence sprinkled in the mix.

About The Speaker:
Wallace Ford is principal and founder of Fordworks Associates Inc., a management consulting and advisory firm based in New York. Mr. Ford is a graduate of Dartmouth College and Harvard University’s Law School. In recent years, he has served as an attorney at the Kaye Scholer law firm, was New York City Commissioner of Business Services during the administration of former Mayor David Dinkins as well as President and Chief Executive Office of the State of New York Mortgage Agency during the administration of former Governor Mario Cuomo. Mr. Ford is a professor at the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University and an Adjunct Professor at the School for Business at Metropolitan College of New York.

The Political Economy of The Living Wage

The idea of the living wage in cities needs to be understood within the broader context of urban economic development and the politics of redevelopment. This means that the living wage is not merely a call for economic justice as most living wage campaigns make them out to be. Rather, they are often ten to fifteen years in the making and are very much the inevitable byproducts of the policy choices that regimes have made in searching for outside investment. The politics of four cities (Baltimore, Detroit, Los Angeles, and New Orleans) that passed living wage ordinances will be examined.

About The Speaker:
Oren M. Levin-Waldman is a Professor in the Graduate School for Public Affairs and Administration at Metropolitan College of New York. Professor Levin-Waldman specializes in public policy and political economy, with a strong interest in political philosophy. He has written extensively on policy issues ranging from welfare reform and workforce development to labor market issues including unemployment insurance, the minimum wage, and other issues relating to income security. His latest book is The Political Economy of the Living Wage: A Study of Four Cities. He is also the author of Plant Closure, Regulation and Liberalism: The Limits to LiberalPublic Philosophy; Reconceiving Liberalism: Dilemmas of Contemporary Liberal Public Policy; and The Case of the Minimum Wage: Competing Policy Models.

Creating Conditions To Promote Student Achievement: What It Takes To Leave No Child Left Behind

While the movement for standards and accountability has largely succeeded in brining greater attention to the issues surrounding student achievement, surprisingly little attention has been given to what it takes to create conditions in schools that will make achievement more likely. Missing from much of the policy debate related to achievement is how to support and cultivate effective teaching in schools. This presentation will describe strategies that have proven effective elsewhere at supporting teaching and learning. It will also explore how schools can develop effective partnerships with parents to further efforts to raise achievement and how date can be used to develop school reforms that lead to transformations in the culture and structure of schools.

About The Speaker:
Pedro Noguera is a Professor in the Steinhardt School of Education at New York University. An urban sociologist, Noguera’s scholarship and research focuses on the ways in which schools are influenced by social and economic conditions in the urban environment. Norguera has served as an advisor and engaged in collaborative research with several large urban schools districts throughout the United States. He has done research on issues related to education and economic and social development in the Caribbean, Latin America and several other countries throughout the world. From 2000 to 2003, Professor Noguera served as the Judith K. Dimon Professor of Communications and Schools at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Is Wal-Mart Good For America?

Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest private employer, is a defendant in class action suits alleging widespread sex discrimination, overtime abuse, violations of immigrants’ rights, and race discrimination—all of which are illegal. Yet some of Wal-Mart’s perfectly legal practices may be even more damaging to our social contract. Take for example, the wages—averaging below $9 an hour—and the health benefits, so stingy and costly that many workers must go without. Wal-Mart workers depend on public assistance, especially for heathcare, at a rate higher than workers at other large companies. There is evidence that the company even encourages workers to go on welfare, raising serious questions about the public costs of low-wage jobs. Yet millions of customers love Wal-Mart, finding that in a society offering few lucky breaks for the poor—and even middle-class—low prices can genuinely improve the quality of life.

About The Speaker:
Liza Featherstone is a contributing editor at The Nation magazine. A freelance journalist, her work has appeared in The Washington Post, The New York Times, Rolling Stone, Columbia Journalism Review, Newsday, Ms., and many other publications. A Visiting Scholar at New York University’s School of Journalism, Ms. Featherstone is the co-author of Students Against Sweatshops and the author of Selling Women Short: The Landmark Battle for Worker’s Rights at Wal-Mart. She gives frequent lectures and media interviews especially on the subject of Wal-Mart.

The Minds of Marginalized Black Men

There is a perception held by many Americans that young, urban, and low-income Black males are corrupt and incorrigible and must be subjected to social control and regulation. Professor Alford, A Young, Jr. will discuss how Black males in situations of crisis think about life—including what is not consistently thought about—as a means of demonstrating that emphasis on violence and fatalism do not capture the complexities of their lives. Professor Young will address how the general public and the academic community can re-think their understandings of marginalized Black men.

About The Speaker:
Alford Young, Jr. is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology and in the Center for Afroamerican and African Studies at the University of Michigan. Professor Young is the author of The Minds of Marginalized Black Men: Making Sense of Mobility, Opportunity, and Future Life Chances. He is co-author of the forthcoming The Souls of W.E.B. DuBois: Sociological Perspectives and the author of innumerable scholarly monographs.

Making History: The Story of The Bronx African-American History Project

Fordham University and The Bronx County Historical Society launched The Bronx African-American History Project in 2002. The project began with an Oral History Project focusing on upwardly mobile Black families that moved from Harlem to The Bronx between 1930 and 1950. The Bronx has the 8th largest concentration of urban African-Americans in the United States; yet, it has been completely left out of the histories of African-Americans in New York City, which focus exclusively on Harlem and Bedford Stuyvesant.

Professor Mark Naison will discuss the unwritten musical history of The Bronx Black neighborhoods, exploring a rich tradition of be bop, rhythm and blues, doo wop, calypso, and Latin jazz that were performed at live venues and nurtured in the public schools of the Morrisania and Hunts Point communities in the 30 years before hip hop arose in The Bronx.

Brian Purnell will examine the unrecognized history of civil rights activism in The Bronx, focusing on the 1963 demonstrators at White Castle restaurants in The Bronx organized by the Congress of Racial Equality.

About The Speakers:
Mark Naison is a Professor of History and African-American Studies at Fordham University. He is the author of Communists in Harlem During the Great Depression, White Boy: A Memoir, and over 100 articles on African-American politics, social movements and American culture and sports. He is also the co-editor of The Tenant Movement in New York City. Professor Naison is the Principal Investigator of The Bronx African-American History Project.

Brian Purnell is a lecturer in African-American history at Fordham University. He is receiving his PhD in History from New York University and works as the Research Director of The Bronx African-American History Project. Mr. Purnell writes about the civil rights movement in New York City during the 1960s.

U.N. Reform and Human Rights

Anne Bayefsky is a Senior Fellow in the Marie Kessel Visiting Scholars Program at Metropolitan College of New York. Before joining MCNY, she was an adjunct professor and associate research scholar from 2002 to 2004 at Columbia University Law School in New York. She was also a visiting professor at the Law School from 2001 to 2002.

In January 2003, Professor Anne Bayefsky launched www.bayefsky.com, a major human rights website dedicated to enhancing the implementation of the human rights legal standards of the United Nations. The site has attracted over 750,000 visitors from 181 countries.

Professor Bayefsky is a member of the International Law Association Committee on Human Rights Law and Practice, and on the Governing Board of U.N. Watch, an ECOSOC-accredited NGO based in Geneva. She is the Editor-in-Chief of the series Refugees and Human Rights.

A Different Shade of Gray: Midlife and Beyond In The Inner City

Katherine S. Newman is a Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs at Princeton University. Prior to joining the faculty at Princeton, Professor Newman was the Malcolm Wiener Professor of Urban Studies at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and Dean of Social Science at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.

Professor Newman is the author of Rampage: The Social Roots of School Shootings, A Different Shade of Gray: Mid-Life and Beyond in the Inner City, No Shame in My Game: The Working Poor in the Inner City, as well as several other books and innumerable scholarly monographs.

The Role of Neighborhoods in the Decay and Rebirth of The Bronx

Professor Evelyn Gonzalez is an Associate Professor of History at William Patterson University. She is the author of The Bronx, a historical study that charts the metamorphosis of The Bronx from "a haven" for second generation immigrants fleeing the overcrowded tenements of Manhattan to its decay during the 1960s and 1970s and its slow and present-day revitalization. Professor Gonzalez is the author of innumerable historical monographs on urban history in New York City. She earned her Ph.D. in History from Columbia University

Black Homeschooling: An Holistic Approach To Bridging The Achievement Gap

Paula J. Penn-Nabrit is the author of Morning by Morning: How We Home-Schooled Our African- American Sons To The Ivy League.

Home-schooling has long been regarded as a last resort, particularly by African-Americans. In Morning By Morning, Ms. Penn-Nabrit discusses the decisions she and her husband, Mr. C. Madison Nabrit, made to home-school their three sons, Charles, Damon, and Evan. This decision was especially poignant for the Nabrit family because Mr. Nabrit’s uncle was the famed civil rights attorney James Nabrit, who, along with Thurgood Marshall, had argued Brown v. Board of Education before the U.S. Supreme Court.

Ms. Penn-Nabrit, a Columbus, Ohio, native, received her undergraduate degree from Wellesley College and her law degree from Ohio State University. She and her husband run Penn-Nabrit & Associates, an Ohio-based business management consultant firm.

A Discussion on International Women's Rights and the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination

About The Speakers:
Anne Bayefsky is a Senior Fellow in the Marie Kessel Visiting Scholars Program at Metropolitan College of New York. Before joining MCNY, she was an adjunct professor and associate research scholar from 2002 to 2004 at Columbia University Law School in New York. She was also a visiting professor at the Law School from 2001 to 2002.

In January 2003, Anne Bayefsky launched www.bayefsky.com, a major human rights website dedicated to enhancing the implementation of the human rights legal standards of the United Nations. The site has attracted over 750,000 visitors from 181 countries.

Professor Bayefsky is a member of the International Law Association Committee on Human Rights Law and Practice, and on the Governing Board of U.N. Watch, an ECOSOC-accredited NGO based in Geneva. She is the Editor-in-Chief of the series Refugees and Human Rights.

Dubravka Siminovic, from Croatia, is a member of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women.

The Long-Term Consequences of Urban Displacement

Mindy Thompson Fullilove, M.D. is a research psychiatrist at New York State Psychiatric Institute and a professor of clinical psychiatry and public health at Columbia University.

Her work on AIDS is featured in Jacob Levenson’s The Secret Epidemic: The Story of AIDS in Black America. With the support of a Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Investigator Award, she has studied the long-term consequences of urban renewal for Black-Americans. As part of this work, she co-founded NYC RECOVERS, an alliance of organizations concerned with the social and emotional recovery of New York City in the aftermath of 9/11. This project provided the data to her recently published book, Root Shock: How Tearing Up City Neighborhoods Hurts America and What We Can Do About It.

Dr. Fullilove has published numerous articles, book chapters, and monographs. She is the author of The House of Joshua: Meditations on Family and Place. She was named a “National Associate” by the National Academy of Science in 2003, being among the “Best Doctors in New York,” and has been the recipient of two honorary doctorates from Chatham College and Bank Street College of Education

CANCELED: Can We Succeed In Iraq: The 7000 Year Perspective

This Event has been canceled.

Mind Magic: How To Become An Even Better Thinker

About The Speaker:
Professor Laurence Miller is the Director of Online Learning and an Associate Professor of Education at Metropolitan College of New York and an Assistant Professor at the Steinhardt School of Education at New York University.

Dr. Miller is an author, psychologist, and specialist in learning and educational technology. He is the author of numerous articles that deal with the development of intelligence in children, learning problems and learning disabilities, problems solving, computer intelligence, bilingualism, the role computers play in education, and online learning.

His most recent book, Mind Magic, addresses the question of how an understanding of one's own cognitive processes can help people become more successful at problem solving, information management, creative thinking, and adapting to change.

Dr. Miller earned his doctorate from Harvard University in 1981. Until recently he served as Director of Education and Research Director for ALFY, Inc., a leading children's educational media company specializing in online content for children at home and in the classroom.

Criminal Justice Reform in the 21st Century: Rockefeller Drug Law Reform & The Community

About The Speaker:
Judge Leslie Crocker Snyder is a nationally recognized leader in the fight against crime, having spent 35 years protecting New Yorkers as a prosecutor, judge, and devoted public servant. She is currently a partner at Kasowitz, Benson, Torres & Friedman LLP and the author of 25 to Life.

As an Assistant District Attorney, Ms. Snyder was the first woman to try both felony and homicide cases in the New York County District Attorney's office. During her nine years in the office, she founded and led the Sex Crimes Prosecution Bureau, the first in the nation. Additionally, she is the co-author of New York's Rape Shield Law and other reforms of Penal Law.

In 1983, she was appointed as a Judge to the Criminal Court of New York City. Subsequently Judge Snyder was appointed to the New York State Supreme Court and the Court of Claims. She presided primarily over the highest "A-1" multiple defendant narcotics felonies, drug gangs, organized crime, and "white collar" criminal cases.

Ms. Snyder has appeared on numerous television news and documentary programs and has been profiled in several, such as "60 Minutes." She is a legal consultant for "Law and Order" and a legal analyst for NBC News and its cable affiliates, as well as Court TV.

Whitney M. Young, Jr.: From Social Worker to Civil Rights Leader

Dr. Robert Schachter is the Executive Director of the New York City Chapter of the National Association of Social Workers. In 1998, Dr. Schachter received the national NASW Outstanding Chapter Executive Director Award, and in 1999 was elected to serve as the chair of the national NASW Council of Chapter Executives.

Dr. Schachter received his MSW in 1980 from Hunter College School of Social Work, concentrating in community organizing and case work. He subsequently continued at Hunter College and received a certificate in administration in 1985 and a doctorate in 1992.

McCarthyism Revisted: Are There Lessons For the Terrorist Scare?

• Ossie Davis, Actor
• Paul Robeson, Jr., Author
• Ellen Schrecker, Historian, Yeshiva University
• Victor Navasky, Publisher, The Nation

Hip Hop Generation Politics: Building a New Black Constituency

Yvonne Bynoe, President, Urban Think Tank Institute

Yvonne Bynoe is the author of Stand and Deliver: Political Activism, Leadership and Hip Hop Culture (Soft Skull Press) . She is alsois the President of Urban Think Tank Institute. She is best known as an astute cultural critic and is regarded as a leading voice among a new generation of young black thinkers. Her work combines the relevant issues of politics, culture, and economics within the context of American popular culture.

Her writings have appeared in PoliticallyBlack.com, QBR: Black Books Review, Colorlines, The Black World Today, Africana.com, PopandPolitics.com and Georgetown Journal of International Affairs . Her essays have also appeared in several anthologies including: National Urban League’s 2001 State of Black America; Rhythm and Business: The Political Economy of Black Music (Askashic Press); Race and Resistance: African Americans in the 21 st Century”(South End Press) and America Now!(Bedford/St.Martins) Writing Arguments, 6 th Edition (Addison Wesley, 2003).

Ms. Bynoe holds a B.A. from Howard University and a J.D. from Fordham University School of Law.

Puerto Rican Migration To New York City: A Historical Analysis of Community Development

Incarceration and Reentry Into Society

About The Panelists:

Elaine Bartlett Elaine Bartlett is a survivor of the Rockefeller Drugs Laws, activist, and Executive Director of Life On The Outside, a non-profit organization that works with ex-offenders and family members. Ms. Bartlett is the subject of Life On The Outside by Jennifer Gonnerman, a book about Ms. Bartlett’s life after being released from prison.

Dorothy Gaines is the mother of three children and was granted clemency by President William Jefferson Clinton in 2000. In 1995, an Alabama federal court sentenced Ms. Gaines to 20 years in prison on federal drug conspiracy charges. She maintained her innocence throughout her incarceration and her case has been widely reported in the national media.

Grayling E. Ferrand is the author ofWe Fall Down But We Get Up: The Prodigal Son and the founding pastor of Reaching Across The World Ministries Inc.

Robert Sanchez is a program manager at STRIVE: East Harlem Employment Services. He has also worked as a youth counselor at Uth Turn, an organization that addresses the problems of at-risk youth.

Nick Yarris is a former death row inmate. Mr. Yarris was wrongfully convicted of kidnapping, rape, and murder and was sentenced to death on July 1, 1982. After spending 22 years in solitary confinement, he was exonerated and released from prison on September 3, 2003 as a result of DNA results that proved his innocence.

How Wealth Perpetuates Inequality

About The Speaker:

Thomas M. Shapiro holds the Pokross Chair of Law and Social Policy at the Heller School of Social Policy and Management at Brandies University. He is the author of the recently published The Hidden Cost of Being African American: How Wealth Perpetuates Inequality.

Professor Shapiro is also the co-author of the critically acclaimed Black Wealth/White Wealth: A New Perspective on Racial Inequality, which won several awards, including the C. Wright Mills Award, the American Sociological Association Distinguished Scholarly Publication Award, and the Myers Center Award for Human Rights.

The Brown Decision: What Have We Learned in Fifty Years?

Gary Orfield, professor of education and social policy at the Graduate School of Education at Harvard University, will speak on The Brown Decision: What Have We Learned in Fifty Years?

Professor Orfield’s recent work include studies on changing patterns of school desegregation and the impact of diversity on the educational experiences of law school students. He is the co-author and author of numerous books, which includes: Diversity Unchallenged: Evidence on the Impact of Affirmative Action, Raising Standards or Rising Barriers, and several other publications. In 1997, Professor Orfield was awarded the American Political Science Association’s Charles Merriam Award for his “contribution to the art of government through the application of social science research.” Professor Orfield is currently the director of the Harvard Project on School Desegregation, and co-director of the Harvard Civil Rights Project.

The Silver Rights Movement: Building a New Generation of Stakeholders in America

Crime and Violence In The Inner-City: How Do We Return To Civility?

Community-Police Relations (Panel Discussion)