2023 RLSC Colloquium - Criminalizing Dissent
Tuesday, March 7 + 8, 2023 | 4:30 PM - 8:00 PM
Virtual Event
The 2023 RLSC Colloquium, Criminalizing Dissent: Historical and Contemporary Repression of U.S. Resistance Movements, will bring together organizers, legal practitioners, and activist scholars to discuss the different ways in which the state and institutions criminalize and suppress U.S. movements of resistance and liberation. This Colloquium puts many different spaces and movements in conversation with one another so that we can collectively recognize and struggle against the same forces of suppression; panels will cover topics like the historical and theoretical foundations of criminalization of dissent, the stifling of activism on college campuses, the reality for contemporary movements on the ground, including racial and climate justice movements, and the resistance and survival of organizers targeted by oppressive systems and institutions.
Register Here Now!
Please find an overview of the four panels below. The entire event will be held over Zoom remotely and is open to the public. More information on the event is available here. For attorneys seeking CLE credit, please be sure to indicate this on the registration form above.
Closed captioning as well as ASL and Spanish interpretation will be available.
This event was planned in collaboration with the Center on Race and Inequality, CoLR, DALSA, Immigrant Rights Project, LSJP, LSEJ, NLG, OUTLaw, PILSA, and WoCC, and with the support of more than 20 co-sponsoring student organizations. Thank you to all of our supporters!
Panel Overviews
Day 1 - March 7th, 2023
Panel 1 | 4:30 - 6:00 PM EST
What is the Criminalization of Dissent? - Discuss the theoretical concept and history of criminalizing dissent and the ways in which U.S. law and culture represses resistance.
Panel 2 | 6:30 - 8:00 PM EST
Stifling Digital and Campus Activism - Discuss the ways in which higher education stifles and monitors student activism. Discuss the ways in which activism and advocacy is surveilled, censored, restricted online.
Day 2 - March 8th, 2023
Panel 3 | 4:30 - 6:00 PM EST
Criminalizing Justice Movements in the U.S. - Discuss the recent history of criminalization and the role of police in suppressing, terrorizing, and fracturing racial and climate justice movements. This panel will discuss police and legislative responses to the Ferguson Uprising, protests in the wake of police murders of Mike Brown, Eric Garner, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd, the Standing Rock and Line 3 protests, and the ongoing Stop Cop City actions.
Panel 4 | 6:30 - 8:00 PM EST
Resisting and Surviving - We will discuss how this impacts the lives of organizers in the wake of a justice uprising, how it impacts organizers working under the threat of criminalization, and what resources exist to support those who have been targeted because of their justice work. We will also hear from lawyers about legal avenues and litigation tactics to resist these attacks.