Panel Discussion Monday 11/16 at 12:30

On 11/16, there will be the Protest Study Project panel in Library Room 230 at 12:30 at Queens College. The debate over the Pittsburgh G-20 Summit protests continues. 

Join us for a discussion of issues of protest, activism, police brutality, and civil rights around the Pittsburgh G-20 International Summit in September, 2009. 

The panel will consider these video clips from Pittsburgh:

"Bike Girl"
LRAD
Reuter's Summary
National Guard

The panelists will include:

Martin Stolar represents Elliot Madison and Michael Wallschlager. Madison and Wallschlager were arrested in Pittsburgh on 9/24 for twittering to protesters and all charges against them were dropped last week, but a federal grand jury investigation is still pending. Martin can also provide legal perspective and experience on issues surrounding challenges to the First Ammendment stemming from demonstration and dissent.

Jeffery Rothman represents James and Irina Weiss in their efforts to have their property returned that was taken in the raid in Queens on the home owned by Elliot Madison. He is also one of the lawyers (along with Martin Stolar and numerous others) pressing the civil rights litigation against the City and the NYPD stemming from the mass arrests made during the 2004 Republican National Convention, and can comment on general concerns surrounding the suppression of First Amendment activity in the context of demonstrations.

Dr. Premilla Nadasen is an historian who writes and teaches about grassroots organizing and social protest. Her book Welfare Warriors: The Welfare Rights Movement in the U,S. won the John Hope Franklin Prize. She is a regular contributor to the Progressive Media Project and has written for numerous journals and magazines. She currently works with Domestic Workers United, a domestic worker rights group here in NYC, and is writing a book on the history of domestic worker activism.

The panel will be moderated by Professor Justin Rogers-Cooper who has been my mentor and collaborator on The Protest Project at Queens College. Justin is a Writing Fellow at LaGuardia Community College, an adjunct faculty at Queens College and Skidmore College, and a Ph.D. Candidate in English at the CUNY Graduate Center. The title of his dissertation is "Revolutionary Affects: Literature, Crowds, and the Crisis of American Nationality, 1860-1935."