|| Aoki Center Updates ||

Tomorrow: "A Critical Look At Human Trafficking And the Anti-Trafficking Movement"

Please join us as we host Erika Gonzalez to address the rise of the anti-trafficking movement has a compelling history that intersects with issues such as racism, homophobia, transphobia, poverty, immigration, and various policies. Despite this complexity, the media often portrays human trafficking in a simplistic manner, emphasizing rescue and saviorism.

In this presentation, we will explore the evolution of the human trafficking movement, applying a critical race theory lens to better understand its dynamics. Additionally, we will discuss the role that lawyers entering this movement can play in supporting survivors of trafficking, providing insights on navigating this multifaceted field.

Tuesday, March 19 | 12:00 to 1:00 PM | Live in Room 1301 | Livestream Here

Tomorrow: A Further Conversation On Israel & Palestine: International Legal Frameworks

Professor Chimène Keitner, an expert in public international law, and Professor Raquel Aldana, an expert in human rights, will take up some of the important questions that King Hall students posed at a previous program on the situation in Palestine and Israel, and invite further discussion as time permits. These questions include how international humanitarian law constrains, or fails to constrain, the conduct of hostilities in the current armed conflict; the role of the International Court of Justice; how the concept of genocide has been invoked to frame Israel's response in Gaza to Hamas's Oct. 7th attack, as well as the broader conflict; and how to address dueling narratives and claims to territory and protection from persecution, including ongoing Palestinian displacement. The discussion will acknowledge spaces of contestation of law with regard to each of these areas, as well as the limits of law, even when consensus exists, to yield a resolution without political will and compromise.

Tuesday, March 19 | 3:30 to 5:00 PM | Room 1001

Angela Harris Prize for Critical Race Scholarship

Dear King Hall Students,

The Angela Harris Prize for Critical Race Scholarship, named after Professor Emerita Angela Harris, who has written extensively in the field of critical legal theory, examining how law sometimes reinforces and sometimes challenges subordination on the basis of race, gender, sexuality, class, and other dimensions of power and identity. Through her scholarly work and mentorship, generations of students have taken up the pursuit of examining the law through a critical lens.

As an acknowledgement of the impact that Professor Harris has made at King Hall, the Aoki Center dedicates the prize for critical race scholarship in her honor. The winning recipient will receive a $400 scholarship and the paper will be published into the Social Justice Law Review. The competition is open to all students enrolled at the UC Davis School of Law. The Harris Prize will be awarded during the Public Interest Graduation for the paper which makes the most significant scholarly contribution in the field of critical race theory.

Submission requirements: Papers must be double-spaced, single-sided, in 12-point font on letter-size paper. They may be of any length. Citations should conform to the current edition of The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation. Attach a cover page with the title, author’s name, expected graduation date, contact information (mailing address, e-mail, and phone number), and the words “Angela Harris Prize” at the top. The paper following the title page must not identify the author in any way but must begin with the title.

Papers must be submitted to Giselle Garcia (gigarcia@ucdavis.edu) by email no later than 11:59 PM on April 11, 2024. If you have any questions about the competition, please direct them to Giselle Garcia.

Third Annual Michael A. Olivas Writing Institute Program To Be Hosted at King Hall

Have you considered teaching or pursuing scholarship you are passionate about?

The late Professor Michael Olivas dedicated his career to diversifying the legal academy by supporting and mentoring faculty of color. Honoring his legacy, the Michael A. Olivas Writing Institute provides a venue for providing constructive feedback on drafts of scholarship of junior legal scholars. Funding for the Third Annual Olivas Writing Institute comes from the Mabie/Apallas Public Interest Chair. The Institute is co-sponsored by the Aoki Center.

This year, the Olivas Writing Institute will experiment with a hybrid in-person and

virtual format in order to promote participation while also allowing in-person interaction. Live events will be held at the UC Davis School of Law. In-person attendance is strongly encouraged. Full remote participation will be possible so long as technology permits.

June 20-21, 2024 | UC Davis School of Law, Martin Luther King Jr. Hall

REGISTER HERE | More Information

|| King Hall ||

Wednesday: Edward L. Barrett Jr. Lecture on Constitutional Law

"Where American Constitutional Democracy Stands a Quarter Way Through the 21st Century"

Professor Amar will discuss, among other things, how the Supreme Court’s commitment to a constitutional jurisprudence ostensibly grounded in principled originalism requires expertise in constitutional history that the current Justices and the Supreme Court bar by and large lack, and how law schools and legal academics can and should – if they are able to clean their own house first -- play a larger and salutary role in constitutional adjudication. Among the issues and cases that will be discussed to illustrate this theme are recent controversies involving the regulation of congressional and presidential elections – disputes whose proper resolution is vital to the preservation our constitutional democracy.

This endowed lecture honors the life of Edward L. Barrett Jr., founding dean of UC Davis School of Law and renowned constitutional law scholar. It is part of UC Davis Law's 2023-24 Racial Justice Speaker Series.

Wednesday, March 20 | 12:10 - 1:00 | Lunch Provided | MCLE Credits Available In-Person Registration | Virtual Registration

Culture Week - Students Against Mass Incarceration and National Lawyers Guild

Join SAMI and NLG for their culture week starting this afternoon!

• Monday, March 18 they will be hosting Decarcerate Sacramento to discuss their work in preventing jail expansions and decreasing jail populations.

• Tuesday, March 19 they will host an alumni panel to discuss careers in public interest law and maintaining radical politics after law school.

• Thursday, March 21 they will be hosting a letter writing space to incarcerated community members facilitated by the Sacramento Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee.

|| Main Campus ||

Exhibit - By Any Means Necessary: Marginalized Students Give Voice in the Third World Forum

View By Any Means Necessary: Marginalized Students Give Voice in the Third World Forum, an exhibition highlighting a student-run, student-produced, student-published newspaper at UC Davis. Starting off as the Third World News in 1970, the newspaper informed and educated students about the Third World movement, as well as provided a platform, a “place of refuge and ‘common ground’ for people of color” to voice their concerns, and express themselves and the struggle for justice on the Davis campus.

The exhibit cases begin with an introduction to the Third World Forum (TWF), featuring examples of editorials, including where this exhibition gets its title. Following the first case, other cases display front pages and additional pages focusing on Native Americans, Asian Americans, Chicano(as)/Latino(as), and African Americans. The exhibit also features the photography of The People’s Monitor/Third World Forum staff member, Francisco Dominguez, whose newly acquired collection of photographs are in line to be processed by Archives and Special Collections. The last case concludes the exhibition with a summary of TWF’s feelings/opinions/views and with a collage of other issues that were written about in the TWF.

Showing Until April 22 | Shields Library, Archives and Special Collections

Exhibit - Reflecting Lenses: Twenty Years of Photography at the Gorman Museum

More than two dozen Indigenous artists from North America, Aotearoa and Australia from a diversity of backgrounds will be represented at the Gorman Museum of Native American Art’s new exhibition at the University of California, Davis. “Reflecting Lenses: Twenty Years of Photography at the Gorman Museum” is open now.

Running From March 6 to September 1 | Norman Gorman Museum

|| Community Events ||

Today: Uniting For Mental Health Equity in Sacramento

Join Decarcerate Sacramento, Disability Rights California, and the California Pan-Ethnic Health Network in a discussion on community resilience and advocating for mental health equity. The goals of the conversation are:

1. To educate people on the history and context behind recent mental health changes (e.g. CARE Court, SB 43, and changes to the Mental Health Services Act) through racial equity and disability justice lenses.
2. To connect and build relationships and power in order for people to protect themselves, their families, their communities, and the programs and services that matter. This includes knowing your rights, knowing what works for you and your community.

Monday, March 18 | 10 AM to 2 PM | Register Here

Sacramento LGBT Community Center, 1015 20th St.

Thursday: Virtual Conference - The Promise of Educational Equity

The Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity at Touro Law Center will host a conference to examine present and future concerns related to educational equity in the K-12 setting and in higher education.

Educational equity measures the ability of all students to access the resources they need to meet their full academic and social potential. Parents, activists, scholars, policymakers, students, and so many others have labored for years around the common goal of improving educational outcomes, in particular for those in marginalized groups who are most vulnerable to institutional failures. The effort to achieve equity in education has included a focus on shifting resources to the places where they are needed most; valuing and adapting to the unique characteristics that students bring to the classroom and which impact their learning process; the closure of achievement gaps; the disruption of inequitable institutional practices; fair treatment among traditional public schools, charter schools, and private schools; and so much more.

Thursday, March 21 | 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM | Virtual | Register - $20

Saturday: Volunteer - Community Sandwich Meal-Making

Join The Reclamation Project 916 in solidarity to address local food insecurity!

Community Sandwich & Meal-Making is taking place at Martin Luther King Jr. Library (7430 24th St. Bypass) on Saturday, March 23, 2024 from 11:00AM-2:00PM. Spend time with your peers making a variety of sandwiches to prepare meal packages, all of which will be distributed directly to community pantries, Sacramento free fridges, and unhoused folks at Sacramento encampments. REGISTER HERE.

Please note that MASKS ARE REQUIRED at this event as a way of practicing community care to make it accessible and protected for everybody.

The Reclamation Project @ 916 is a Sacramento-County-based, 100% youth-run, grassroots social justice organization delivering mutual aid, liberating anti-oppression education, healing justice, and solidarity to marginalized and under-served communities throughout California.

Save-the-Date : Join The Campaign To Close CA Women's Prisons

Join the California Coalition for Women Prisoners (CCWP) in their campaign to close women's prisons throughout the state. They will host a vital virtual conversation about what it will take to decarcerate the 3,374 people remaining in CA state women's prisons and invest in community controlled resources.

Featuring: Andrea James, Rachel Herzing, and Piper Kerman. Moderated by KD Dixon.

March 28 | 5:00 PM PST | Virtual | Register Here

||Podcast Recommendation||

Listen - How American's Two Abortion Realities Are Clashing Featuring Mary Ziegler

The current political landscape regarding abortion has raised an explosion of conflicts and constitutional questions that the legal historian Mary Ziegler says has no parallel in modern times. She’s the author of six books on reproductive rights in America, including Roe: The History of a National Obsession, and the Martin Luther King Jr. professor of law at the University of California, Davis. She says, “We’re seeing, from conservative and progressive states, moves to project power outside of their borders in ways we really haven’t seen in a really long time.”

In this conversation, Ziegler explains the bifurcated abortion landscape that has emerged since the decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization overturned Roe. They discuss the different political and legal strategies conservative and progressive states are using to pursue their opposing goals; why the abortion rate has gone up, even as 14 states have implemented near-total bans on abortion; and how a second Trump administration could try to restrict access to abortion for all Americans, no matter what states they live in. Listen Here.