EVENT: TRIANGLE SHIRTWAIST FACTORY TO RANA PLAZA

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TRIANGLE SHIRTWAIST FACTORY TO RANA PLAZA: Building Movements for Labor Rights & Corporate Accountability

6PM, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 8, 2015
CUNY School of Law, Room 1/202
2 Court Square
Long Island City, 11101

CUNY Law Review, in collaboration with the Labor Coalition, is hosting a compelling panel next week on labor rights and the garment industry.

Prof. Shirley Lung will be moderating the conversation
featuring:

Katherine Gallagher
Center for Constitutional Rights

Chaumtoli Huq
American Institute for Bangladesh Studies
(Skyping in from Bangladesh!)

Sophie DeBenedetto
National Mobilization Against Sweatshops

There will be a wine and hors-d’oeuvre reception following
the panel.

FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
Please register at: bit.ly/shirtwaist2rana

THE SEWARD PARK URBAN RENEWAL AREA, FORTY-FIVE YEARS LATER: AFFORDABLE TO WHOM?

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Eugene Chen

Click here for a recommended citation and to download a paginated PDF version of this article.

Introduction

From the 1950s through the 1960s, two thousand families with low incomes were displaced from their homes when the City of New York embarked on an urban renewal plan targeting the area east along Delancey Street at the foot of the Williamsburg Bridge, otherwise known as the Seward Park Urban Renewal Area (SPURA).[1] Forty-five years later, the “Seward Park Slum Clearance Project” left 165 million square feet of parking lot space, devoid of any signs of human occupation aside from the coming and going of vehicles. After a contentious community debate, the City Council passed a resolution (the “Resolution”) on October 11, 2012, for a mixed-use plan to develop SPURA.[2] Proposals were due to the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) on May 6, 2013, and on September 18, 2013, Mayor Bloomberg announced that Delancey Street Associates LLC, a joint venture composed of L+M Development Partners, BFC Partners, and Taconic Investment Partners, had been selected to develop the site.[3] The plan calls for 60/40 residential and commercial development, with 500 units of permanently affordable housing, out of the 1000 units of housing being built.[4] In all likelihood, the developer chosen to develop SPURA will apply for the 421-a tax exemption, an incentive intended to encourage the construction of market-rate and affordable housing in New York City (the “City”).

 

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CUNITY Conversations: Toxic Sweatshops: Regulating the Import of Hazardous Electronics with Allie Robbins

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Come join us for the fourth and final installment of our discussion series, CUNITY Conversations!

CUNITY Conversations is a discussion series designed to create discussion around a particular topic. It is an informal time to get together, hang out, and talk about a relevant social justice issue.

The next installment of the CUNITY Conversation series is Wednesday, April 1, from 1-2:45 pm, in the Community Room, 3/116.

Bring your lunch and join us for snacks plus great conversation discussing Allie Robbin’s article, “Toxic Sweatshops: Regulating the Import of Hazardous Electronics.”

The article discusses the rise in consumer use of personal electronic devices and how it has led to a boom in electronics manufacturing worldwide. Along with the expansion of production have come serious questions about the safety of production processes, as large numbers of workers and their children have become seriously ill. This article proposes that the United States, as a leading importer of electronic devices and components, create an Electronics Import Safety Commission to make sure that both workers and consumers are safe. This commission, modeled after the Consumer Protection Safety Commission, would monitor and regulate electronics manufacturing and would enhance transparency and accountability throughout the supply chain.

Join the dicussion on Twitter and Facebook on the hashtag #cunityconvo.

New Board Members Announced

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Congratulations to the 2015 – 2016 CUNY Law Review Board!

Samuel Bruce
Elizabeth Vulaj
Digital Articles Editors

Hoda Mitwally
Executive Articles Editor

Jonathan Cantarero
Serena Newell
Chloe Serinsky
Notes & Comments Editors

Aubree D’Alfonso
Alanna Sakovits
Public Interest Practitioner Section (PIPS) Editors

Leonard Leveille
Special Events Editor

Jacqueline Meese
AJ Wipfler
Managing Articles Editors

Tom Power
Managing Editor

Alexandria E. Nedd
Editor-in-Chief

Storytelling Guantánamo: Using Creative Advocacy & Lawyering to Challenge Dominant Political and Media Narratives

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WITH A SPECIAL DOCUMENTARY SCREENING OF WAITING FOR FAHD

CUNY Law Review, in collaboration with the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), presents:

A CONVERSATION WITH
Omar Farah, Staff Attorney, CCR
Murtaza Hussain, Journalist, The Intercept
Professor Ramzi Kassem, Immigrant & Non-Citizen Rights Clinic
Aliya Hussain, Moderator, Advocacy Program Manager, CCR

STUDENT CONTRIBUTIONS
Andrew Adams & Syeda Tasnim
Immigrant & Non-Citizen Rights Clinic, Law & Security Docket

6PM, TUESDAY, MARCH 10, 2015
Reception at 6pm, panel begins at 6:30pm
CUNY School of Law, Community Room, 3/116
2 Court Square
Long Island City, 11101

FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
Please register at: bit.ly/storytelling-gtmo

CUNITY Conversations: Exploring Sex Work, Harm Reduction, and Housing Rights in NYC with Chelsea Breakstone & Zoë Root

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Come join us for the third installment of our discussion series, CUNITY Conversations!

CUNITY Conversations is a discussion series designed to create discussion around a particular topic. The discussion leaders are the Law Review’s Note and Comments student authors, along with professors and practitioners. It is an informal time to get together, hang out, and talk about a relevant social justice issue.

The next installment of the CUNITY Conversation series is Wednesday, March 4, from 6-8pm, in the Community Room, 3/116.

Notes and Comments student author and 3L Chelsea Breakstone will be presenting “Exploring Sex Work, Harm Reduction, and Housing Rights in NYC,” along with Zoë Root, Staff Attorney and Human Trafficking Intervention Court Part Coordinator from The Bronx Defenders.

Join the dicussion on Twitter and Facebook on the hashtag #cunityconvo.

Vol. 17.2

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Explore the digital version of  Volume 17.2.

Public Interest Practitioners Section (PIPS)

Notes & Comments 

Tax a Bank, Save a Home: Judicial, Legislative, and Other Creative Efforts to Prevent Foreclosures in New York by Erica Braudy, Staff Attorney at the New York Legal Assistance Group, Housing Project/Mobile Legal Help Center, J.D. CUNY School of Law (2013).

Executive Article

The Chicago Police Torture Scandal: A Legal and Political History by G. Flint Taylor, founding partner, People’s Law Office (PLO).

Essay

Discriminatory Maintenance of Reo Properties as a Violation of the Federal Fair Housing Act by Stephen M. Dane, of the civil-rights law firm Relman, Dane & Colfax, PLLC; Tara Ramchandani, associate at Relman, Dane & Colfax, PLLC; and Anne P. Bellows, 2013 Relman Civil Rights Fellow.

Event

A Tribute to Justice: Honoring Forty Years of Struggle to Advance Judicial Process for Crimes Against Humanity in Chile with Judge Baltasar Garzón Real, internationally renowned Spanish jurist who issued the first detention request, through Interpol, for former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet on charges of abductions, torture, murder, forced disappearances and terrorism; Sir Geoffrey Bindman, QC, a British attorney specializing in human rights law who represented Amnesty International and Chilean victims’ interests in the case against Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet in the late 1990s; and Joan Garcés, a Spanish attorney who has made major contributions to international human rights law in the fight against impunity for heads of government who commit crimes against humanity. Moderated by Almudena Bernabeu, International Attorney for the Center for Justice and Accountability (CJA).

 

 

Video — The Long Crisis: Economic Inequality in New York City

The City University of New York Law Review presented The Long Crisis: Economic Inequality in New York City, on November 12, 2014, at the CUNY School of Law.

The Long Crisis reflected the theme of the Law Review’s 18th volume, which focuses on the role that economic inequality and injustice play within the context of social justice legal issues and practical solutions lawyers and activists are employing to help overcome the inequality.

The panel featured: Fahd Ahmed, acting executive director of DRUM—South Asian Organizing Center; Tom Angotti, professor of Urban Affairs and Planning and Director of the Hunter College Center for Community Planning and Development; Stanley Aronowitz, Distinguished Professor in the Ph.D. Program in Sociology at the CUNY Graduate Center; Jennifer Jones Austin, CEO and executive director of Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies; Shawn Blumberg, legal director of Housing Conservation Coordinators; and Robin Steinberg, founder and executive director of The Bronx Defenders.

WHERE ARE YOU GOING, WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN? SERIOUSLY, LET ME SEE YOUR GPS.

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CASE COMMENT: UNITED STATES V. ALVAREZ (2014)

Rajendra Persaud[1]

Click here for a recommended citation and to download a paginated PDF version of this article.

Technological advances continue to confound already dense fourth amendment jurisprudence. As modern devices become more powerful, the information stored and accessed within raises new issues that did not exist only a few decades ago. As such, new technological devices have the potential to create cases of first impression upon the courts. Recently, in U.S. v. Alvarez, Judge McAvoy ruled warrantless searches of cell phones unconstitutional in the absence of exigent circumstances or a need to protect officer safety.[2] The opinion compared cell phones to modern computers[3] that house a wealth of private information within[4] (akin to personal residences[5]). Thus, the smart phones were granted protection similar to computer hard drives[6] and all information obtained from the seized phones was suppressed.[7]

The court declined to extend this reasoning to the seized GPS device, instead comparing it to a paper map[8] despite the latter’s primitive nature. The court distinguished the GPS device by reasoning that the device’s function was designed to guide a person on a trip, the information contained was easily available to the public, and the seizure was connected to the officer’s reasonable suspicion about the defendants’ presence in the area.[9] This comment addresses the oversight regarding the technological capability of the GPS device and considers implications in light of future litigation.

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VAWA @ 20: Index

VAWA @ 20 – Index

Introduction – Nishan Bhaumik on the history of the Violence Against Women Act’s passage and reauthorization and the goals of the VAWA @ 20 series.

VAWA After the Party: Implementing Proposed Guidelines on Campus Sexual Assault Resolution – Mary P. Koss and Elise C. Lopez of the University of Arizona on the effect of existing and proposed VAWA guidelines on the process for sexual assault adjudication at institutions of higher education.

Roll Back “Prison Nation” – Donna Coker, Professor of Law at the University of Miami School of Law, on VAWA’s contribution to hyper-incarceration.

Raising the Visibility of the Margins and the Responsibility of Mainstream – Marcia Olivo, Sisterhood of Survivors/Miami Workers Center, and  Kelly Miller, Idaho Coalition Against Sexual & Domestic Violence, on the need to expand VAWA in order to guarantee protections for marginalized communities.

HIV, Violence Against Women, and Criminal Law Interventions – Aziza Ahmed, Associate Professor of Law at Northeastern University School of Law, on HIV/AIDS and the negative consequences of the criminal law approach to sex trafficking.

Art, Violence, and Women – Yxta Maya Murray, Professor at Loyola Law School, on how visual art can inform the feminist legal process.

The Politics of Pretext: VAWA Goes Global – Deborah M. Weissman, Reef C. Ivey II Distinguished Professor of Law, University of North Carolina School of Law, on VAWA International (I-VAWA), Congress’s attempt to expand U.S. influence in the realm of violence against women as a matter of foreign policy.

Building the Knowledge Base: Research Funding through VAWA – Claire M. Renzetti, of the University of Kentucky, Rebecca M. Campbell, of Michigan State University, and Allison Adair, of the University of Kentucky, on the substantial increase in empirical studies of the causes and consequences of violence against women, as well as research on responses to both victims and perpetrators.

Stalled at 20: VAWA, the Criminal Justice System, and the Possibilities of Restorative Justice – Leigh Goodmark, Professor Law at the University of the Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law, on restorative justice and the failure of VAWA to provide abuse survivors with alternative venues for seeking justice.

The Mainstreaming of the Criminalization Critique: Reflections on VAWA 20 Years Later – Mimi E. Kim, Assistant Professor, School of Social Work, California State University, Long Beach, on the troubling collaboration between feminists and the criminal justice system represented by VAWA’s attachment to the Crime Bill of 1994.

VAWA in the Lives of Battered South Asian Women in the United States – Shamita Das Dasgupta, Ph.D., DVS, Manavi, on the experiences of battered South Asian immigrant women under VAWA.

The Gender Justice Movement: The Fullest Expression of the former Battered Women’s Movement, and the Domestic Violence Movement – Tiloma Jayasinghe, J.D., Executive Director, Sakhi for South Asian Women, on the New York City Gender Justice Taskforce and her work leading the Sakhi for South Asian Women, an anti-domestic violence agency.

VAWA and Welfare Reform: Criminalizing the Most Marginalized Women – Ann Cammett, Professor at CUNY School of Law, on how national welfare reform legislation and the rising rate of female incarceration undermined VAWA’s goals for poor women.

Improving Civil Legal Assistance for Ending Gender Violence – Elizabeth L. MacDowell, Associate Professor of Law and Director of the Family Justice Clinic at the William S. Boyd School of Law, University of Nevada Las Vegas, on necessary reforms to VAWA to expand civil remedies for domestic abuse survivors.

A Disappearing Act: The Dwindling Analysis of the Anti-Violence Movement – Kerry Toner on the failure of VAWA to address the complex social phenomenon of domestic violence and the complete experiences of survivors.

Gender Violence and Civil Rights – Julie Goldscheid, Professor, CUNY Law School, on the need for a renewed civil rights initiative in light of Morrison striking down VAWA’s original civil rights remedy.