Thursday, November 4, 2021
12:00 PM (EST) | Via Zoom

Recording: https://youtu.be/ok4zKqZAb1c

Cassidy R. Sugimoto is Professor, School Chair, and Tom and Marie Patton Chair in the School of Public Policy. Her research examines the formal and informal ways in which knowledge is produced, disseminated, consumed, and supported, with an emphasis on issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion. She received the Indiana University Trustees Teaching award (2014) and a Bicentennial Award for service from Indiana University (2020), where she served on the faculty from 2010-2020. During her tenure at IUB, Sugimoto also served a rotation as the Program Director for the Science of Science and Innovation Policy program at the National Science Foundation. She has a doctoral degree in Information and Library Science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

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Thursday, November 4, 2021
10:00 - 11:00 AM (EST) via Zoom

Join the conversation to discuss the ongoing effects on caregiving and work demands brought on by COVID-19.  We will share lived experiences and solutions as we grapple with the long-term impact of the pandemic.  Open to UB Faculty, Staff and Students. 

Mónica Ramírez
Gender Equity Activist, Civil Rights Attorney & Co-Founder of Aliana Nacional de Campesinas 

“Authentic Leadership During Turbulent Times”

Thursday
October 7, 2021
12:00 PM (est) via Zoom

Recording: https://buffalo.box.com/s/h3xtogq2f133vm06ejnpqbu2h8m7a8xs

Information to interact with the work that Mónica Ramírez is leading:

Humans that feed us: https://justice4women.org/the-humans-who-feed-us

LA Times Coverage of lack of representation of Latinx people in film/tv:
https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/tv/story/2021-06-13/latino-gap-representation-tv-movies-roles-writers-directors-executives

Latina Equal Pay Day: Oct. 21 -  https://www.latinaequalpay.org/about

Mónica Ramírez is the daughter and granddaughter of migrant farmworkers. She was born, raised and lives in a rural community in Ohio where her family settled out of the migrant stream. She is a long-time advocate, organizer, social entrepreneur and attorney fighting to eliminate gender-based violence and secure gender equity. For over two decades, she has fought for the civil and human rights of women, children, workers, Latinx(e) community members and immigrants, specifically addressing the needs of farmworker women across the U.S.

In 2003, Mónica created the first legal project in the United States dedicated to addressing gender discrimination against farmworker women, which she expanded to create Esperanza: The Immigrant Women’s Legal Initiative of the Southern Poverty Law Center. In 2006, she launched a first of its kind national working group to address and prevent workplace sexual violence against farmworker women, which led to a national conference on this issue, the publication of a Best Practices Manual and helped inspire and inform the work of many advocates and lawyers around the country. Mónica consulted on the documentary “Rape In the Fields” and she has written several groundbreaking reports on gender discrimination in the U.S. food industry, including “Injustice On Our Plates.”

She has founded and co-founded several other major initiatives, including the Bandana Project, Justice for Migrant Women and Alianza Nacional de Campesinas. In November 2017, Mónica wrote the “Dear Sisters” letter on behalf of Alianza that was published in TIME magazine from farmworker women to women in the entertainment industry that sparked the creation of the global TIME’S UP movement. Mónica also wrote and organized the Querida Familia letter to the Latinx community with Eva Longoria, America Ferrera, Diane Guerrero, Olga Segura and Alex Martinez Kondracke, which garnered the support of over 200 Latinx leaders and was published in the New York Times in the wake of the El Paso massacre in August 2019.

Mónica co-founded The Latinx House in 2019, which focuses on uplifting the power and contributions of the Latinx community through culture change and narrative work, as well as power building, education and alliance building. In 2020, she joined 9 other Latina leaders to cofound and launch Poderistas, an organization aimed at uplifting and educating Latinas, while also amplifying their power, potential and many contributions.

Mónica is recognized as a thought leader and prominent voice in the Latinx community for her long history as an organizer and her innovative approach to advocacy. She has received numerous awards, including Harvard Kennedy School’s first Gender Equity Changemaker Award, Feminist Majority’s Global Women’s Rights Award, the Smithsonian’s 2018 Ingenuity Award and the Hispanic Heritage Award. Mónica was named to Forbes Mexico’s 100 Most Powerful Women’s 2018 list and TIME Magazine included her in its 2021 TIME100 Next list.

Mónica is also an inaugural member of the Ford Global Fellowship. She serves on the Board of Directors of the National Women’s Law Center, Friends of the Latino Museum and she is a member of The Little Market’s Activists Committee. Mónica is a graduate of Loyola University Chicago, The Ohio State University's Moritz College of Law and Harvard Kennedy School. She lives in Ohio with her husband and son.

Barbara Smith is one of the most important Black feminists in our time.  In 1974, Smith co-founded the Combahee River Collective in Boston, and Smith co-authored their now famous Combahee River Collective Statement in 1977, which became one of the earliest explorations of the intersection of multiple oppressions, including racism and heterosexism. When the Collective disbanded in 1980, Smith went on to found with Audre Lorde Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press, which published their collection Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology. Smith's groundbreaking essay, “Toward a Black Feminist Criticism,” opened the door to serious critical consideration of Black women writers. Smith's most recent book is the award-winning Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around: Forty Years of Movement Building with Barbara Smith.

This event is a collaboration with the Department of Africana and American Studies and their 2021 Endowed African American Studies Lecture.

Fighting against oppression and injustice are the dues we pay for the privilege of being conscious and we are honored to be able to challenge it with great responsibility. We begin to build a unified and strategic human rights movement that weaves our strengths together, that uses our differences as a platform for modeling a positive future built on justice and the politics of love, rather than a return to the past based on the politics of fear and prejudice. However, to create this movement we need to make a commitment to recognize and support each other – Calling People in rather than Calling them Out. Loretta will talk about how we can transform the Calling Out Culture into a Calling In Culture in order to build a united movement for human rights. 

Loretta J. Ross is an award-winning, nationally-recognized expert on racism and racial justice, women's rights, and human rights. Their work emphasizes the intersectionality of social justice issues and how intersectionality can fuel transformation.

Ross is a visiting associate professor at Smith College (Northampton, MA) in the Program for the Study of Women and Gender, teaching courses on white supremacy, race and culture in America, human rights, and calling in the calling out culture.

Ross has co-written three books on reproductive justice: Undivided Rights: Women of Color Organize for Reproductive Justice, winner of the Outstanding Book Award by the Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights; Reproductive Justice: An Introduction, a first-of-its-kind primer that provides a comprehensive yet succinct description of the field and puts the lives and lived experience of women of color at the center of the book; and Radical Reproductive Justice: Foundations, Theory, Practice, Critique. Ross' current book, Calling In the Calling Out Culture, is forthcoming in 2021.

Ross appears regularly in major media outlets about the issues of our day. Ross was recently featured in a New York Times piece, "What if Instead of Calling People Out, We Called Them In?"

Ross was a co-founder and the National Coordinator, from 2005 to 2012, of the SisterSong Women of Color Reproductive Justice Collective, a network of women of color and allied organizations that organize women of color in the reproductive justice movement. Other leadership positions have included:

• National Co-Director of the April 25, 2004 March for Women’s Lives in Washington D.C., the largest protest march in U.S. history with more than one million participants.
• Founder and Executive Director of the National Center for Human Rights Education (NCHRE)
• Program Research Director at the Center for Democratic Renewal/National Anti-Klan Network where Ross led projects researching hate groups and working against all forms of bigotry with universities, schools, and community groups
• Founder of the Women of Color Program for the National Organization for Women (NOW) in the 1980s
• Leading many women of color delegations to international conferences on women's issues and human rights.

Ross serves as a consultant for Smith College, collecting oral histories of feminists of color for the Sophia Smith Collection which also contains Ross' personal archives.

Ross is a graduate of Agnes Scott College and holds an honorary Doctorate of Civil Law degree awarded in 2003 from Arcadia University and a second honorary doctorate degree awarded from Smith College in 2013. Loretta J. Ross is pursuing a PhD in Women’s Studies at Emory University in Atlanta. Ross is a mother, grandmother and a great-grandmother.