Law School Blog
Sunday, October 7, 2007
At this year's Equal Justice Works Conference, I was struck most by a
workshop entitled, "Advancing Justice and Promoting Government
Accountability Through Community Lawyering, the Law, and Grassroots
Organizing."
The Executive Director of Illinois' Citizen Advocacy Center presented her
experience as a lawyer promoting grassroots organizing around local
government accountability. Part of that work involves teaching community
members to use tools like the Freedom of Information Act and the Open Public
Meetings Act to gain access to information about what local government
officials are doing in their community. Frequently, those people are
stigmatized and labeled as undesirable community members because they sought
accountability and made some noise.
The Center sends out hundreds of anonymous Freedom of Information Act
requests every year in order to test the response. A full 40% go
unanswered. Often, Center attorneys have to call the government body in
question, identify themselves as lawyers, and threaten a lawsuit before the
information is released. This struck me, because if lawyers with years of
experience using the FOIA tool are frequently stymied in getting
information, imagine the challenge for a citizen with limited time and
energy who seeks the information in her free time! The lessons the Citizen
Advocacy Center has learned reminded me that even when good tools exist as
pathways to open government and true accountability, resistance to their
implementation is just around the corner. Hearing about the Center's work
to make sure that FOIA and Open Meetings could be used by any citizen who
wants to employ them was one of the highlights of my Equal Justice Works
experience.
- Colleen Melody, 2L and Gates Scholar
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Today I enjoyed a workshop concerning various mental health aspects of Alternative Dispute Resolution. One of the most fascinating was presented by a group of scholars from Yale who were inspired by Kenji Yoshino's important book, Covering: The Hidden Assault on Our Civil Rights, to explore how inclined gay men were to use institutionalized ADR mechanisms to resolve workplace concerns. One of the principles of Yoshino's work is that "invisible minorities" such as gay men and lesbian women may opt to not disclose their identities in order to protect themselves from discrimination. Yoshino argues that there is a hidden but real psychological cost for those who, often for totally rational reasons, opt to use this self protective strategy. These social science researchers looked at whether there was a difference between straight men and those gay men who were: 1) completely out in all spheres of their lives; 2) only out to chosen friends and family; and 3) those who were not out at all. The study looked at how these individuals compartmentalized various aspects of their identity, not just their sexuality, at home versus work, their stress levels in both places, and whether they were more or less inclined to take advantage of ADR workplace remedies offered to resolve conflicts. This issue is important, the social scientists urge, because it tests the true reach and impact of ADR at the threshold, i.e. at the point where participants might even elect to use it. Any guesses as to results...? The results to follow!
I took a tour of the Courtyard Antiqua at the University of Padova, or the Bo, and saw the Great Hall, Galileo's desk, and most fascinating of all... the first anatomical theater in the world. At the time of its construction, the church forbade the dissection of human bodies, but the city of Padova protected the researchers from the church. Still, a trapdoor was installed that enabled the professors to dump the body to the river below and replace it with an animal cadaver in the event of a raid by the church inquisitors. The Bo is a testament to the importance of academic freedom.
It is also graduation time here at the Bo. And this means that the graduates are toasted loudly and wildly by their friends in the streets. It is a tradition that feels like a series of mini Mardi Gras, where the graduates are often outrageously and scantily clad, placed on platforms, squirted with silly string and champagne and rousing cheers are heard everywhere. Eventually they wear a wreath of olive branches.
- Professor Lisa Kelly
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Yesterday, my panel and I presented during a session entitled "The Natural and Necessary Intersections of Mental Health And Law Impacting Children ad Families." My particular talk addressed the issue of mental health advocacy for adolescents in the child welfare system.
Included on my panel were Sarah Ramsey (Syracuse) and Robert Kelly (LeMoyne
College) who presented on the issue of testing the effectiveness of child custody evaluations in family law matters, Laurence Nolan (Howard) who spoke about seeing visitation between incarcerated parents and their children through the lens of therapeutic justice, Cynthia Mabry (Howard) who discussed the mental health debates in the field of transracial adoptions, and Gilbert Holmes (Baltimore) whose talk advocated a new rule of sixes to address the capacity of children as rights enforcers. Prof. Mabry should receive a great deal of credit for organizing this dynamic discussion.
Afterwards, we all retired to a cafe near the Basilica of St. Anthony for gelato, cafe latte, and a serenade by a roaming band of accordion players who, sensing immediately that we were an American audience, tried desperately to please us with their rousing renditions of "Chattanooga Choo Choo," "Hello Dolly," and "New York New York!" Unfortunately, our phrase books did not include how to tell them that we wanted their other playlist.
I also learned some fascinating things from other panelists during the day.
A social science researcher from the University of North Carolina, Desmond Raymond, outlined the developing results of a national longitudinal study on the effect of maltreatment on the mental health of children and youth. As an advocate for bringing forward the voice of children, I was pleased to see that a big part of this study is to compare the reports of young people themselves with those of caregivers and child welfare workers. The result is that the youth self-reporting provides an important and very different perspective on this topic. Another interesting finding is that youth report more distress from witnessing family violence than from either physical or sexual abuse. If you want to learn more about this study (our own Diana English here in the Northwest is a research partner) you can find out more at www.iprc.nc.edu/longscan.
One more significant side note. You all are probably aware of Professor Paul Miller's recent successful conference on the ethics of growth attenuation raised by the Ashley X. case. I did not realize until I came here the impact of that case. More often than not when I introduce myself as being from Washington, I am likely to be asked about that case. Whether from the east coast of the United States, Australia, the Netherlands, or Canada, professionals in the disability field know of the Ashley X. case. I was glad I had attended Prof. Miller's conference so that I could talk about what a great job he did in mobilizing professionals and members of the disability community to debate such an important topic.
- Professor Lisa Kelly
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
I arrived in Venice on June 24 and was shuttled to Padova where the 30th International Congress of Law and Mental Health was scheduled to start the next day. Padova, situated between Verona and Venice, is the home of the second oldest University in Italy, founded in 1212. Just like we call our school, "the U Dub," this university also has its affectionate nickname, "the Bo." You almost never hear it referred to by its real name, the Universita de Padua. Dante and Copernicus studied here; Petrarch and Galileo taught here. And now hundreds of scholars from around the world were meeting to discuss the melding of law and mental health in the 21st century. On the shuttle over, I rode with a woman from Australia as well as some of my American friends from the east coast, Cynthia Mabry from Howard University and Bob Dinerstein from American University.
- Professor Lisa Kelly