Building Community to End Trans and Gendered Violence featuring Bamby Salcedo & Vanessa Gonzalez-Seigel
Friday, May 31, 2024 | 8:15 AM - 9:30 AM
Bamby Salcedo
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Bamby Salcedo is a prominent and celebrated transgender Latina activist, known all over the world for her passionate and productive social, political, and economic influence. As the President and CEO of the TransLatin@ Coalition, Bamby steadily leads this nationally recognized organization that advocates for and addresses the issues of transgender Latinas throughout the United States. Bamby received her Master’s Degree in Mexican and Latin@ Studies from California State University, Los Angeles, and also developed the Center for Violence Prevention & Transgender Wellness, a multimillion, multipurpose, multiservice space for Trans people in Los Angeles.
Bamby’s wide-ranging activist work has brought visibility and given a voice to not only the trans community, but to countless others whose efforts focus on critical topics that include immigration, HIV, at-risk youth, LGBTQIA+ issues, incarceration, and more. Through her dynamic leadership, Bamby has developed several organizations that have created networks and connections where there were none, and she, to this day, tirelessly advocates for the rights,dignity, and humanity of those who are often silenced. Determined to affect change at every level, Bamby actively engages and supports many local, national, and international organizations and planning groups.
As a recognized public speaker, Bamby’s experience has an extensive range. She has expertise in presenting to governmental bodies, human rights and social justice organizations, and universities and colleges, as well as speaking at demonstrations and rallies and testifying as an expert witness. Bamby has also appeared at national and international conferences as a featured speaker. She speaks to diverse audiences on varied topics and intersecting issues that include transgender-related issues, social justice, healthcare, social services, incarceration, immigration, and detention as well as professional and economic development for transgender people. Thanks to her impassioned and impactful influence, Bamby has been invited several times by the White House to participate on a multitude of panels. In 2015, she proudly shared the stage with President Biden at the United States of Women Summit and later that same year she spoke at the Transgender Women of Color and Violence and LGBTQ People of Color Summit. In 2021,
Bamby visited the White House again to speak as an invited guest and valued advocate on the issues of safety, inclusion, as well as opportunities for transgender individuals. Bamby was also invited to testify before Congress to speak on the Equal Rights Amendment with the ERA Coalition, for which Bamby serves as a board member. Bamby was humbly honored to participate in the hearing and always ensures that our elected officials learn firsthand how people are impacted by the policies and laws they create.
Bamby has also had the honor of being the opening plenary speaker at several conferences, including The 2018 National Sexual Assault Conference, the 2015 National HIV Prevention Conference, and the United States Conference on AIDS in 2009 and 2012. She has participated as a facilitator with The PanAmerican Health Organization where she helped develop the blueprint on how to provide competent health care services for transgender people as well as health care for LGBT people and human rights in Latin America and The Caribbean.
Vanessa Aviva Gonzalez-Seigel
Vanessa Aviva González-Siegel (she/her/ella) is a first-generation Cuban-American born in New York City. She is a proud trans and queer woman. Her start in diversity work began while she was an undergraduate student and since dedicated her personal and professional life to social justice education and intersectional LGBTQ+ inclusion.
Vanessa’s career in higher education began when she was an undergraduate office assistant at the Center for Social Justice Education and LGBT Communities at Rutgers University-New Brunswick. The center, known as SJE saved her life and modeled a life of service. She is a member of the National Advisory Council and QTPOC Caucus Co-Chair for the National Conference on Race & Ethnicity in Higher Education (NCORE), a researcher in the LGBTQ+ Participatory Action Research Collective, and a member of a think tank sponsored by the Spencer Foundation charged with creating a shared vision for anti-racism and racial justice work within LGBTQ+ center work. Vanessa is a former executive board member of the Consortium of Higher Education LGBT Resource Professionals and currently works full-time engaged in TQ center(ed) diversity work at Columbia University.
Outside of higher education, Vanessa is a speaker with SpeakOut, The Institute for Democratic Education & Culture and part of the Intersectional Interventions collective. She serves as a member of the Board of Directors of the New York Transgender Advocacy Group, a transgender-led organization that advocates and creates gender-based policies that benefit transgender, non-binary, and gender non-conforming people in the State of New York.
Vanessa holds a B.A. in Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and Social Justice Education from Rutgers University - New Brunswick and an M.A. in Higher & Postsecondary Education from Teachers College, Columbia University. She is currently a doctoral student at The City University of New York in Organizational Leadership, Development, and Change.
Legal and Legislative Efforts to Dismantle Affirmative Action, Voting Rights and DEIJ Efforts featuring Kimberlé Crenshaw and Justin Jones
Friday, May 31, 2024 | 4:30 PM - 5:45 PM
Two key voices in this contemporary moment come together for a powerful conversation to discuss recent laws and court decisions that negatively impact civil and human rights. They explore how these actions specifically affect Black communities and higher education, identifying strategies and opportunities for advocacy and resistance. They will analyze the erosion of civil rights and empower attendees with knowledge
and tools to address these challenges.
Kimberlé W. Crenshaw
Kimberlé W. Crenshaw is a pioneering scholar and writer on civil rights, critical race theory, Black feminist legal theory, and race, racism and the law. In addition to her position at Columbia Law School, she is a Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Crenshaw’s work has been foundational in critical race theory and in “intersectionality,” a term she coined to describe the double bind of simultaneous racial and gender prejudice. Her studies, writing, and activism have identified key issues in the perpetuation of inequality, including the “school to prison pipeline” for African American children and the criminalization of behavior among Black teenage girls. Through the Columbia Law School African American Policy Forum (AAPF), which she co-founded, Crenshaw co-authored (with Andrea Ritchie) Say Her Name: Resisting Police Brutality Against Black Women, which documented and drew attention to the killing of Black women and girls by police. Crenshaw and AAPF subsequently launched the #SayHerName campaign to call attention to police violence against Black women and girls.
Crenshaw is a sought-after speaker and conducts workshops and trainings. She is also the co-author of Black Girls Matter: Pushed Out, Overpoliced, and Underprotected. Her writing has appeared in the Harvard Law Review, the National Black Law Journal, the Stanford Law Review, and the Southern California Law Review. She is a founding coordinator of the Critical Race Theory workshop and co-editor of Critical Race Theory: Key Documents That Shaped the Movement. In 1981, she assisted on the legal team of Anita Hill during her testimony at the confirmation hearing of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
Crenshaw writes regularly for The New Republic, The Nation, and Ms. and provides commentary for media outlets, including MSNBC and NPR, and hosts the podcast Intersectionality Matters! In addition to frequent speaking engagements, training sessions, and town halls, Crenshaw has facilitated workshops for human rights activists in Brazil and in India and for constitutional court judges in South Africa. She serves on the Committee on Law and Justice of the National Academies of Science.
Crenshaw’s groundbreaking work on intersectionality was influential in the drafting of the equality clause in the South African Constitution. She authored the background paper on race and gender discrimination for the United Nations’ World Conference on Racism in 2001, served as the rapporteur for the conference’s expert group on gender and race discrimination, and coordinated NGO efforts to ensure the inclusion of gender in the WCAR Conference Declaration.
Rep. Justin Jones
Justin Jones is a member of the Tennessee House of Representatives for District 52, representing parts of Nashville, a student of Fisk University and Vanderbilt Divinity School, and a servant leader not afraid to put his body on the line for his community.
Justin has fought for justice since childhood. As a college student, he organized for healthcare and against racist policing. He led campaigns for the expansion of Medicaid in Tennessee and the repeal of restrictive state voter ID laws. He confronted systemic racism in the halls of power and successfully challenged dangerous bills that sought to limit First Amendment rights of nonviolent protests. For almost a decade, he has been involved and spoken truth to power at our State Capitol.
Photo at top featuring a Microsorum spectrum leaf (endemic to Hawai‘i and commonly known as a laua‘e fern) provided by the Hawaiʻi Tourism Authority. Used with permission.