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      Affirming the unalienable rights and dignity of all students, while balancing society’s need for the orderly operation of our schools is a challenge for both the educational and legal communities.  In this session, participants will be engaged in an interactive exploration of students’ rights.  Participants will examine key landmark Supreme Court decisions and discuss related contemporary challenges.  This session will foster a shared vision of students’ rights as the foundation of a culture of civility, respect and civic responsibility in our schools and throughout our society.  Instructional strategies and resources will be shared.

      This presentation will provide attendees with a lesson plan to familiarize students with how voting is regulated and the Voting Rights Act.  Ms. Stein will present an exercise in which students are given various scenarios that demonstrate the qualifications that states may set, based on guidelines set by the U.S. Constitution and the U.S. Supreme Court. The 1965 Voting Rights Act will be discussed and efforts by states to impose barriers to voting, both past and present.  Finally, Ms. Stein will discuss attempts to curtail the Act, including the Supreme Court’s decision in 2013 in Shelby County v. Holder, which overturned key provisions of the Act, and what impact this may have going forward.

      This engaging, interactive presentation will have participants reviewing political cartoon,s past and present, to prompt discussion about how cartoonists can use their images to enlighten others on topics of equal rights, poverty, racism, sexism and more. Attendees will be given a full package of resources to use to analyze cartoon,s from archived classics from Thomas Nast and Theodor Seuss Geisel, to the present day drawings by Tom Toles (Washington Post), Adam Zeigler (Buffalo News) and Matt Davies (Newsday) and others.

      This presentation has been adapted from the NYC Bar Association Capital Punishment Committee’s annual teacher training, which aims to assist local high school educators in developing capital punishment curricula in the classroom. This session will cover a brief history of the death penalty in the United States, the use of the death penalty abroad, current legal developments, and ways to engage students around the issue. The presentation will have a special focus on the human rights implications of capital punishment, including racial disparities and the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

      Justice John Marshal Harlan gave us the term the "Colorblind Constitution" in his famous dissent in Plessy v. Ferguson. For more than a century since, the term has intrigued legal scholars and activists alike; first, racial liberals who despised the badge of inferiority Jim Crow bestowed, then, racial conservatives who believed policies like affirmative action were nothing more than reverse discrimination. This presentation, based on nearly 20 years of experience in the college classroom, will focus on the concept and why it continues to allure in an age when diversity is a top priority for American society.

      The opportunities for teaching about human rights issues found within the newly approved NYS K-12 Social Studies Framework will be presented. Some of the Inquiries from the Resource Toolkit will be highlighted.

      Respect between all parties is a must when dealing in the realm of youth justice. Respect cannot be demanded or taken. Respect can only be earned and given. Dive into your own history with respect and find out how you give it and earn it to find out the ways justice can be symbolic in your world and those around you.

      New York tries all 16 and 17 year olds as adults when they come into contact with the criminal justice system, and minors as young as 13, when they are accused of certain crimes. Minors tried as adults are exposed to a lifetime criminal conviction, are denied the opportunity to receive age appropriate services, and at age 16, they are held in adult facilities. The presentation will address the societal costs of this policy and offer a path for reform.

      An overview of the trafficking law in New York State with a focus on demographic and case data: Where are trafficked persons located? What historical/social forces brought them here? Are they isolated or co-ethnic communities? What human capital do they carry? How have they been received in rural as well as urban areas? How is the New York State law changing the dynamic of trafficking? Has the influx of unaccompanied minors led to increases in human trafficking? How external forces abroad are connected to this issue?  

        Karen Korematsu will discuss the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case, Korematsu v. United States (1944), when her father, Fred, refused to report to the U.S. Government’s internment camps for Japanese Americans during World War II.  The Asian Law Caucus was the 1983-1984 legal team that re-opened Fred’s case and convinced a federal court to overturn his conviction. Karen Korematsu founded the Korematsu Institute to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the overturn of her father’s conviction. In the last decades of his life, Fred Korematsu continued to fight for Japanese American redress, and spoke out to protect the civil rights of Muslim and Arab Americans after 9/11. Following Fred’s death in 2005, his daughter Karen, continues to speak on behalf of her father discussing human rights violations around the world.

      Matt Rozell, an educator at Hudson Falls High School, will discuss “Why Teaching History Matters/American GIs and Human Rights Violations: Combat Soldiers confront the Holocaust.” Mr. Rozell has recently completed a book compiling stories from local military men and women who fought in World War II, based on information gathered by his students. Mr. Rozell was honored as” A Person of the Week “by ABC News.

      James Johnson, Esq., is the Senior International Fellow for the Robert H. Jackson Center. Before joining the center in 2012, Mr. Johnson was Chief of Prosecutions for the Special Court for Sierra Leone.  Mr. Johnson supervised trial and investigative teams that prosecuted ten people accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity.