Events

Fall Quarter '22 Events

Older adult reading book to child

Abolish Mandatory Reporting and Family Policing 

A conversation with Erin Miles Cloud, Jasmine Wali, and Shannon Perez-Darby moderated by Dean Spade

Nov 10, 2022 | 7:00pm
Panel Discussion
Online
Co-Sponsors: Patricia Wismer Professorship for Gender and Diversity, Seattle University

How do movements for abolition of mandatory reporting and family policing intersect with larger movements for abolition of the criminal legal system? In this conversation, Erin Miles Cloud (Movement for Family Power), Jasmine Wali (JMac for Families) and Shannon Perez-Darby (Mandatory Reporting is Not Neutral Project) will discuss the history of and harms associated with mandatory reporting; its role in policing Black, brown, and indigenous families; and how together we can abolish mandatory reporting while building strong, safe,  and connected communities.

Event is free and open to all. Register to attend.

No borders! No prisons! No cops! No war! No state?

A conversation with Harsha Walia, William Anderson, Gord Hill, and Dean Spade 

Nov 15, 2022 | 7:00pm
Panel Discussion
Online

Many new people are thinking together about what their lives and communities might look like without the violent apparatuses of their governments caging, deporting, and deploying people. Among abolitionists an important question lurks: are we trying to take over our governments, or get rid of them? When we imagine a world without cops, soldiers and cages, do we still imagine having nation states? Is this question different for people who are living under settler colonial governments, such as those in the US and Canada, versus for others? Some people imagine that the state can become a source of care-taking (distributing healthcare, education, housing), and worry that the state is the only thing that can do such care-taking “to scale.” Others argue that state care-taking programs are racialized and gendered, structured to stabilize extractive systems, and should be replaced with decentralized mutual aid networks. This event gathers three leading thinkers whose work questions the desire to take over the state, to discuss the stakes of this question for abolitionist work right now.

Event is free and open to all. RSVP Here.

 

graffiti on the wall saying,

Long Arrow in SU Yellow

Abolition on the Ground: Reporting from the Movement to #DefundthePolice

with: Angélica Cházaro, Erica Perry, and Andrea Ritchie, moderated by Dean Spade

Mar 1, 2022 | 7:00pm
Panel Discussion
register here
Co-Sponsors: Seattle University

With Abolitionists have been working for centuries to oppose the growth of systems of racially targeted criminalization. The 2020 uprising against police violence and anti-Black racism brought the conversation about abolition to the mainstream, and prompted campaigns in cities and counties across the US to defund the police and shift public resources toward meeting basic human needs like housing, healthcare, and childcare. For almost two years, local organizers around the country have been rigorously working to transform city and county budgets, and their work has made significant changes in local, state, and national politics. Join us for a conversation with abolitionist organizers and lawyers leading this work to talk about lessons learned since June 2020, how this work fits into the larger abolitionist vision for a world without cages or borders, and the key strategic questions facing the movement now.

This event is made possible by the Patricia Wismer Professorship in Gender and Diversity at Seattle University.