Public Interest Debate
The Sparer Program serves as a public interest resource for the entire Law School community. The program sponsors an annual public interest law forum or symposium that draws nationally-recognized lawyers and public policy advocates to the Law School to discuss critical issues in public interest law. These programs have provided a rich exchange of ideas, contributing immensely to the intellectual discourse at the Law School. Several issues of the Law School’s journals have been devoted to these symposia.
Upcoming Event
Sparer Forum: Free Them All: Defending the Lives of Criminalized Survivors of Violence
Tuesday, March 19
5 to 7 p.m.
Reception to follow
Brooklyn Law School
Subotnick Center, 10th Floor
250 Joralemon St.
Brooklyn
RSVP by March 15
About the Forum
Join the Edward V. Sparer Public Interest Law Fellowship Program and the Center for Criminal Justice for “Free Them All: Defending the Lives of Criminalized Survivors of Violence.” This forum will explore the ways in which the criminal legal system impacts women who have experienced violence and will feature a keynote speech by Mariame Kaba, organizer, educator, and prominent civil rights activist.
Although the prison and jail population in the U.S. has begun to decline, the number of girls and women detained in federal and state prisons across the country has increased. A large percentage of them have been prosecuted for violent offenses. Often, their charged conduct is directly connected to domestic, sexual, or systemic violence they have experienced, yet their cases have escaped public scrutiny. The legal community has been slow to respond to the specific pathways, policing practices, and prosecutorial decisions that contribute to the criminalization and mass incarceration of survivors of violence.
The event will probe the ways in which our laws and legal systems center on harmful constructs of race and gender that are especially damaging for survivors of violence and women of color. In doing so, the program will test the notion that the criminal legal system is the right site for anti-violence work and will highlight promising new ways communities can address violence outside of the carceral state. A discussion following the keynote will delve deeper into the role of lawyers and Brooklyn Law School in advancing conversation and practice around these critical issues.
Co-Sponsored by the Center for Criminal Justice and the Edward Sparer Public Interest Law Fellowship Program
The Edward V. Sparer Fellowship Program
Brooklyn Law School alumnus, Professor Edward V. Sparer, was one of the leading poverty lawyers in this country. The Edward V. Sparer Public Interest Law Fellowship Program was established in 1986 to honor him and encourage law students and lawyers to carry on his legacy. For more information about the Sparer Fellowship program, visit www.brooklaw.edu/sparer.
The Center for Criminal Justice
The Center for Criminal Justice was launched by Brooklyn Law School in 2016 as a dynamic center that builds on the existing strengths of the school’s nationally recognized criminal law faculty and places the Law School at the center of critical conversations, education, and sharing of expertise on the most vital issues and topics in criminal justice law and policy today.
For general inquiries regarding this event, please contact the BLS Office of Events at events@brooklaw.edu or (718) 780-7966.
Past Event
Sparer Forum: Low-Income Workers and Sexual Harassment
Thursday, March 22
About the Forum
Amid all of the uproar about sexual harassment in the workplace, little attention has been paid to the lives of women who work in low-income jobs. These women (and sometimes men) often suffer from harassment by supervisors and co-workers on a daily basis and face additional intersectional discrimination on the basis of race, national origin, and age. Their claims rarely surface in the courts since attorneys are typically reluctant to represent low-wage earners. This program will consider the legal and policy issues specific to these workers that should be addressed as employers, courts and legislators re-examine their understanding of sexual harassment.
The annual forum of the Edward V. Sparer Public Interest Law Fellowship Program will feature Tanya K. Hernández, Archibald R. Murray Professor of Law, Fordham University School of Law, a leading scholar in intersectional discrimination; Elizabeth S. Saylor, Partner, Emery, Celli, Brinckerhoff & Abady LLP; LaDonna Powell, her client in a major sexual harassment lawsuit involving the security guard industry; and Minna Kotkin, Professor of Law and Director, Employment Law Clinic, Brooklyn Law School. Elizabeth Schneider, Rose L. Hoffer Professor of Law and Director of the Sparer Program, Brooklyn Law School, will moderate.