The Fight for Gender Justice, Part III: The Next Generation of Gender Justice
The Fight for Gender Justice, Part III: The Next Generation of Gender Justice
Tuesday, April 13, 2022
6:00-7:15 p.m. EDT
Join the Birnbaum Women’s Leadership Network, the Ms. Foundation for Women, and the Georgetown Law Center on Poverty and Inequality Initiative on Gender Justice & Opportunity for the final event in The Fight for Gender Justice, a three-part speaker series presented by the BWLN and the Ms. Foundation. The speaker series, which began in Fall 2021 and continues through Spring 2022, convenes thought leaders from across advocacy organizations and the legal field to highlight the legal and advocacy battles at the forefront of the movement for gender justice.
This final program will focus on next-generation leaders and look ahead to the future of gender justice work. From empowering young people on gender justice issues to rethinking gender norms, the panel will explore how various advocates are laying the groundwork for long-term change.
- Aliya Horton and Manzili Kokayi (Welcome Remarks), Youth Advisors, Georgetown Law Initiative on Gender Justice & Opportunity
- Dr. Monique W. Morris (Introduction), President and CEO, Grantmakers for Girls of Color
- Sabrina Bernadel (Moderator), Equal Justice Works Fellow, National Women’s Law Center
- Shawnda Chapman, Director, Girls Fund Initiative, Ms. Foundation for Women
- Courtney Dankworth, Partner, Debevoise and Plimpton LLP
- Rebecca Epstein ’95, Executive Director, Center on Poverty and Inequality, Georgetown Law
- Nadra Nittle, Education Reporter, The 19th
This event is free and open to the public; kindly register via Zoom. Attendees will receive a confirmation email with the Zoom link and password after registering.
Bios
Opening Remarks
Monique W. Morris, Ed.D. is an award-winning author and social justice scholar with three decades of experience in the areas of education, civil rights, juvenile and criminal justice. Dr. Morris is the President and CEO of Grantmakers for Girls of Color, the nation’s only philanthropic intermediary explicitly focused on resourcing movements and organizations led by, and in support of, cis and trans girls and femmes of color. Dr. Morris is the author of two forthcoming books, Cultivating Joyful Learning Spaces for Black Girls: Insights into Interrupting School Pushout (ASCD, 2022) and Charisma’s Turn (The New Press, 2023), a graphic novel about supporting Black girls who stand in their gifts. She is an executive producer and co-writer of the documentary film, PUSHOUT: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools, which is based upon two of her books, Sing A Rhythm, Dance A Blues: Education for the Liberation of Black and Brown Girls (The New Press, 2019) and Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools (The New Press, 2016). She has written dozens of articles, book chapters, and other publications on social justice issues and lectured widely on research, policies, and practices associated with improving juvenile/criminal justice, educational, and socioeconomic conditions for girls and women of color. Her 2018 TED talk on how to stop the criminalization of Black girls in schools has received nearly 2 million views and been translated into 20 languages. The founder and Board Chair for the National Black Women's Justice Institute, Dr. Morris’ work has been profiled by MSNBC, CSPAN2, The Washington Post, The New York Times, NPR, USA Today, and PBS, among other national and local print, radio, and television media.
Panelists
Sabrina Bernadel (Moderator) is an Equal Justice Works Fellow for the Education team at the National Women’s Law Center, where she leads federal and state advocacy efforts on ending school pushout for girls of color, especially when caused by exclusionary discipline and school policing. Before joining NWLC, Sabrina has advocated for access to education for underrepresented students at Advocates for Children of New York, Advancement Project, and the U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights. Sabrina holds a J.D. from the Georgetown University Law Center, where she found joy in serving as the president of the Georgetown Women of Color Collective. As a first-generation Haitian-American, Sabrina grew up relying on spaces and mentors in schools to help her explore her identity as a woman of color. Today, she is dedicated to educational equity work as a means of keeping schools safe for girls of color as they similarly come into their own.
Shawnda Chapman joins the Ms. Foundation as Director of the Girls Fund Initiative. Prior to joining the organization, Shawnda worked as a lead program specialist on a national initiative aimed at preventing and ending girls’ incarceration at the Vera Institute of Justice. She also served as Director of the Beyond the Bars Fellowship program at the Center for Justice at Columbia University. Partially based on her own experiences, her work has focused on racial justice, gender justice, and understanding the ways girls of color get pushed into the criminal justice system. With a particular focus on marginalized and vulnerable populations, Shawnda has broad experience developing as well as implementing research, monitoring, and evaluation materials both domestically and internationally. Shawnda sits on the board of Black Women’s Blueprint, a transnational organization that works to end all forms of violence against Black women and girls. She also serves on the advisory board of Southern New Hampshire University’s Global Education Movement, an initiative that works to increase refugee access to tertiary education. Shawnda earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology and Master of Science degree in Applied Social Research from The City University of New York, Hunter College.
Courtney M. Dankworth is a litigation partner at Debevoise & Plimpton LLP, where she focuses her practice on internal investigations and regulatory defense, including banking enforcement actions and disputes related to financial services and consumer finance. Ms. Dankworth advises clients facing investigations and enforcement actions conducted by the Department of Justice, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, state attorneys general and state banking regulators. She also conducts a broad range of investigations for corporations and financial institutions and advises clients regarding their compliance obligations. Ms. Dankworth also has broad commercial litigation experience representing clients in federal and state courts, including in securities litigation, shareholder actions and class actions. Ms. Dankworth is recommended by The Legal 500 US (2020) for Financial Services Litigation and is recognized as a Rising Star in Banking (2017), in Law 360’s list of attorneys under 40 “whose legal accomplishments transcend their age.” In addition, she is named a Future Star and member of the “Under 40 Hot List” by Benchmark Litigation (2021). Ms. Dankworth is actively involved in the development of young lawyers, particularly women lawyers. She co-chairs the firm’s Women’s Resource Group and is a member of its Hiring Committee and Evaluation Committee.
Rebecca Epstein ’95 is the Executive Director of the Georgetown Law Center on Poverty and Inequality and the founder of its Initiative on Gender Justice & Opportunity. She has over 25 years’ experience in litigation and policy development. As a civil rights litigator, Rebecca worked to advance racial equity and combat sex discrimination; during her decade at Georgetown, her focus has been on policy and research that support marginalized girls. Rebecca was the lead author of the groundbreaking report Girlhood Interrupted: The Erasure of Black Girls’ Childhood (2017), which identified adultification bias, and the co-author of The Sexual Abuse to Prison Pipeline: The Girls’ Story (2015), among other publications. She has given briefings to Congress and the White House on these issues and spoken as an expert at events and conferences across the country. Rebecca has received recognition for her work from several non-profit organizations, including the Champion of Education award from the Education Law Center and the Girls’ Champion award from the Art of Yoga Project. She has served as a member of the Steering Committee of the Girls @ the Margin National Alliance, a co-leader of the National Girls Initiative, and an advisor to several girls-serving organizations. Previously, Rebecca served as a senior trial attorney in the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice; a staff attorney at Public Justice; and Policy Counsel at the National Partnership for Women and Families. Rebecca graduated with honors from Brown University and received her JD from New York University School of Law. She clerked for the Honorable Raymond A. Jackson in the Eastern District of Virginia, and is a member of the District of Columbia, New York, and Supreme Court Bars.
Nadra Kareem Nittle is an education reporter for The 19th News. She was previously a senior reporter for Civil Eats and a staff reporter for Vox Media and the Long Beach Press-Telegram. Her writing has also appeared in The Guardian, BBC News, Business Insider, The Huffington Post, The Atlantic, and The New York Times. She has edited multiple book series for Enslow Publishing and written the book Recognizing Microaggressions for that publisher. Nadra has discussed her work in a number of media outlets, including Good Morning America, WYNC’s The Takeaway, the Columbia Journalism Review, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Vox’s Today Explained podcast, and Southern California Public Radio. Additionally, she has been a featured panelist and moderator at events organized by the James Beard Foundation, the L.A. Times Festival of Books, Cal State L.A., and Occidental College, her alma mater. Nadra is the author of Toni Morrison’s Spiritual Vision: Faith, Folktales, and Feminism in Her Life and Literature. She lives in Los Angeles.