Each year, the Diversity and Social Justice Forum at Chapman University's Dale E. Fowler School of Law hosts a symposium on issues of social justice, typically paired with the release of the DSJ Forum, an online publication featuring practice-oriented issues of social justice, including any aspect of the underlying legal or humanitarian concerns, legal or policy solutions, or the work of movements organizing to address the problem.
Fall 2021: 5th Annual DSJF Symposium
October 29, 2021
10:30 a.m. - 2:30 p.m. PT
Hosted virtually via Zoom
This year’s virtual symposium examines the implications of the social reckoning that occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic, with a focus on the interplay between racial hierarchy and solidarity, and the wrongful conviction of people of color, specifically within Black communities.
Panel 1 | COVID-19: Lessons in Racial Hierarchy and Solidarity
10:30 - 11:45 a.m.
This panel is designed to engage in dialogue centering around how COVID-19 has reinforced and challenged the social positionality of racial and ethnic identities, review how communities of color have been variously impacted by the global pandemic, explore how disparate impacts are framed by structural and social inequalities, and discuss implications for solidarity in a post-COVID world.
Panelists
- Robert S. Chang, Executive Director of the Fred T. Korematsu Center for Law and Equality and Professor of Law at Seattle University School of Law
- Kaaryn Gustafson, Professor of Law and Associate Dean of Academic Community Engagement at UCI Law
- Vinay Harpalani, Professor of Law at University of New Mexico School of Law
Moderated by Professor Marisa Cianciarulo, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, Fowler School of Law
Keynote Address | Justice Goodwin Liu
12 - 1 p.m.
Justice Goodwin Liu, an Associate Justice of the California Supreme Court, will serve as the symposium’s keynote speaker in dialogue with Fowler School of Law Dean Matt Parlow and Q&A from the audience.
Panel 2 | Guilty Until Proven Innocent
1:15 - 2:30 p.m.
This panel is designed to engage in dialogue regarding needed reforms and strategies for advancing toward a system that promotes public safety and addresses the criminal justice system's many inequities. It's clear that our criminal justice system is undeniably broken, and it is no longer a question whether our justice system produces convictions of innocent persons. Exonerating wrongful convictions is great and should be celebrated. But often, society fails to consider that being released does not resolve the anguish of a wrongful conviction.
Prior to the panel, Evette Jahangiri, a 2nd-year law student at the Fowler School of Law, will perform an original, evocative spoken word poem.
Panelists
- Jimmie C. Gardner, Exoneree and Advocate
- Mark Godsey, Carmichael Professor of Law and Co-Founder and Director of the Ohio Innocence Project at the University of Cincinnati College of Law
- Christopher Ochoa, Exoneree and Attorney
- Claudia Salinas, Staff Fellow at California Innocence Project
Moderated by Matthew Parlow, Dean of the Fowler School of Law and Donald P. Kennedy Chair in Law
