Glass Ceilings, Glass Walls: Intersections in Legal Gender Equality and Voting Rights 100 Years After the 19th Amendment

The Nineteenth Amendment was a milestone for women’s rights but has often been criticized for being passed at the expense of people of color. Our 2020-21 Symposium will look back on the one hundred years since women were given the right to vote using a rough chronological approach. We will open the day with a historical overview of the Nineteenth Amendment, discussing who contributed to its ratification and who was left out after its passage. This background will create a basis for our subsequent gender equality conversations around Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation, and the modern legal feminist agenda, culminating in a panel discussing the current state of voting rights. Our Keynote speaker Desmond Meade will present about his role in fighting for legislative change in Florida to restore the right to vote to 1.4 million Floridians.

Additional event details and symposium schedule 

Panelists include:

Panel 1

Jill Elaine Hasday, Distinguished McKnight University Professor and Centennial Professor in Law, University of Minnesota Law School
Phylicia H. Hill, Counsel, Economic Justice Project, Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law
Martha S. Jones, Society of Black Alumni Presidential Professor and Professor of History and the SNF Agora Institute, John Hopkins University
Tracy A. Thomas, Seiberling Chair of Constitutional Law and Director of the Center for Constitutional Law, University of Akron School of Law

Panel 2

Jessica Clarke, Professor of Law and FedEx Research Professor and Co-Director of the George Barrett Social Justice Program, Vanderbilt Law School
Kyle C. Velte, Associate Professor of Law, University of Kansas School of Law

Panel 3

Serena Mayeri, Professor of Law and History, University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School
Joan C. Williams, Distinguished Professor of Law, Hastings Foundation Chair and Director of the Center for WorkLife Law at the University of California, Hastings Law

Panel 4

Kat Calvin, Founder and Executive Director of Spread The Vote and Co-Founder and CEO of the Project ID Action Fund
Terry Ao Minnis, Senior Director of Census and Voting Programs, Asian Americans Advancing Justice – AAJC, and Senior Fellow, Democracy Fund