Events Calendar

Getting Radical in the South presents keynote speaker Y. Frank Southall

Southall is the Lead Organizer and Community Engagement Coordinator at the Jane Place Neighborhood Sustainability Initiative (JPNSI) in New Orleans, LA. At JPNSI, Southall manages the organization’s organizing and community engagement strategies. His primary organizing focuses are around evictions, renters’ rights and other matters related to housing justice.

Prior to working at JPNSI, Southall worked at Neighborhood Housing Services of New Orleans in the Freret Neighborhood Center, where he focused on intergenerational community-building, youth organizing and programs designed to improve quality of life. He has also worked at Tulane University’s Center for Public Service, Public Allies, Working America and other organizations focused on social, racial and economic justice. Southall has presented workshops, research and participated on panels at Tulane University, Auburn University, the Highlander School & for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to name a few. Additionally, his activist work has been featured in publications such as “Teen Vogue”, “Curbed”, “Vice News” and more.

In his free time, he serves as the elected representative for the 94th District on the Louisiana Democratic State Central Coordinating committee, is a co-founder of an emerging tool lending library in New Orleans and is on the board of directors for the New Orleans Food Cooperative. Southall studied Journalism and African-American Studies at the University of Cincinnati.

Full event information: https://law.utexas.edu/calendar/2021/02/22/59485/

Join Getting Radical in the South for a panel discussion with Talia Lewis, Caren Short, and Lucy Wood

Full event information: https://law.utexas.edu/calendar/2021/02/23/59486/

According to the EPA, “Environmental justice is the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income, with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies.”

Unfortunately, this definition of environmental justice represents an ideal, not a reality.

For example, in America, “White people experience a “pollution advantage,” where they exposed to 17% less air pollution than is caused by their consumption. Back and LatinX people, on average, bear a “pollution burden” of 56% and 63% excess exposure, respectively, relative to the exposure caused by their consumption.

In particular, the southern United States is rife with environmental injustice — from the proliferation of petrochemical facilities to the contamination of drinking water and even the impact of climate change-induced disasters. Black and brown communities too often face threats to their health and safety from environmental pollutants, toxics, and degradation.

This panel will explore the work being done by environmental justice lawyers, organizers, and advocates across the South fighting for the right to a safe, clean, and livable environment for their communities.

Full event information: https://law.utexas.edu/calendar/2021/02/23/58945/

For Movement lawyers, lawyering is a tool to be harnessed and leveraged in support of movements fighting for greater power in a system that disproportionately concentrates power among the white, wealthy, and corporate. In essence, a lawyer is accountable to goals of movements. For these lawyers, organizers and leaders, the primary goal is not to change laws or policies but to change the disproportionate allocations of power that create and reinforce the systems of oppression that produce unjust laws and policies.

This panel will be a discussion and reflection between organizers, movement lawyers, and community leaders on how they work together, including the practical challenges and strengths of this theory of social change in action.

Full event information: https://law.utexas.edu/calendar/2021/02/24/58965/

TJOGEL's biggest event of the year! Come learn from industry practitioners about the most relevant practices and issues surrounding the energy industry today!

Full event information: https://law.utexas.edu/calendar/2021/02/25/57866/

Join TELJ, the Environmental Law Society, and the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA) for a digital presentation of the award-winning film created by SUWA, WILD UTAH. SUWA is a group dedicated to protecting the iconic redrock wildernesses of southern Utah. The film will be followed by a discussion about what we can do to protect these important lands. All parts of this event will be carried on via Zoom.

Register for the event here: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZAucO-gqjMoHNAOlc2FyTPfgW3aTFqAeqDl.

Full event information: https://law.utexas.edu/calendar/2021/02/25/59745/

UT Law's Texas Hispanic Journal of Law and Policy presents COVID 19: the Ongoing Effects of the Global Pandemic on Latinxs. The symposium will cover topics ranging from challenges of working at home from various jobs, changes to our employment landscape, and new health hardships that have arisen as a result of multiple state responses to public health. We will also take a look at how our communities have risen to the challenges through mutual aid organizations, government leadership, assistance from our representatives, and how immigration policy has been affected as a direct consequence of COVID. Join us as we explore these topics and more at the Texas Hispanic Journal's annual symposium!

Full event information: https://law.utexas.edu/calendar/2021/02/26/55745/

The Texas Journal of Oil, Gas, and Energy will host the 16th annual TJOGEL Symposium on February 25th and 26th. TJOGEL is the largest student-run publication focusing on energy law scholarship in the United States and the Symposium is our premier event, bringing together legal practitioners from across the state and country to discuss the latest developments in the world of oil, gas, and energy law.

Full event information: https://law.utexas.edu/calendar/2021/02/26/58405/

Capitalism in the 21st century is accelerating its power. Employers continue to accumulate capital and exploit vulnerable communities, forcing many to relocate to the Global North. But just as the American workforce grows and diversifies, the US government offers workers little to no protection. In Janus v. AFSCME, The United States Supreme Court ruled in favor of right-to-work laws, which are intended to financially weaken unions. While employers receive trillions of dollars in bailout money to offset the impacts of COVID-19, many workers continue to work in unsafe conditions.

In this panel, we will discuss the theoretical and practical work labor lawyers will need to do to organize and stand up for workers in increasingly hostile environments.

Full event information: https://law.utexas.edu/calendar/2021/02/26/58966/

The traditional law school experience often feels, at best, an inadequate training for social justice-minded students, and at worst, a toxic environment that favors privilege over equity and reinforces oppressive norms. This panel, Organizing in Law School, will highlight the efforts of some law students and groups, who have resisted this traditional experience, by actively engaging in efforts to organize around urgent issues outside and inside the law school.

Please join this conversation where law students and young lawyers will share stories, resources, advice, and strategies for organizing while in law school.

Full event information: https://law.utexas.edu/calendar/2021/02/26/59467/

Through an expansive network of federal and local policing, the carceral state constantly entraps immigrants, especially immigrants of color. For example, in the past year alone, over 15,000 immigrants in Texas have been detained by the Department of Homeland Security. This panel of legal practitioners and community organizers will discuss the day-to-day havoc the system wreaks in communities of color, especially in the context of COVID-19. Their work within the intersection of criminal law and immigration addresses the xenophobic underpinnings of this civil mass incarceration system with a clear goal—the full and immediate abolition of immigration detention.

Full event information: https://law.utexas.edu/calendar/2021/02/27/59487/

Join us for the first of a 3-part webinar series on immigration law and policy changes following the inauguration of President Biden.

The Biden administration has committed to end the Remain in Mexico program, which has forced asylum seekers to wait indefinitely for their US asylum proceedings in dangerous conditions in Mexico. Other policies that effectively blockade the border to asylum seekers may also finally be abandoned. In addition, there is a strong push for President Biden to end an immigration system that has seen widespread detention of asylum seekers, families and children, and other migrants, often in facilities run by for-profit prison companies. This panel will explore not only a possible end to exclusionary policies but also a new vision that would emphasize humane processing of asylum seekers arriving at the U.S. southern border. The panelists will consider public health, legal and policy questions that will arise during the transition away from an enforcement-focused approach.

This event is sponsored by the Immigration Clinic, the William Wayne Justice Center for Public Interest Law , and the St. Edward’s University Social Work Program.

REGISTER for Part 1: Ending detention and border policies that exclude asylum seekers on March 3 at noon here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/138441266555

REGISTER for Part 2: A Promise of Permanency? Legislative reform, temporary protections and lingering interior enforcement on March 24 at noon here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/139283517751

REGISTER for Part 3: Re-Building the US Refugee Resettlement Program on April 14 at noon here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/139283930987

Full event information: https://law.utexas.edu/calendar/2021/03/03/59445/

Ethical Issues for Environmental Lawyers: what to do when your client refuses to do the right thing. Join UT professor Jeff Civins for this event, eligible for CLE ethics credit. Register at https://www.telj.org/symposium.html

Full event information: https://law.utexas.edu/calendar/2021/03/05/58545/