- For updates and information related to COVID-19, click here.
Webinar: Anti-Protest Legislation: Implications for Social Movements
Federal Appeals Court Cites Bible, Shakespeare, and Boston Tea Party. Says Food Not Bombs Food Sharing is “an act of political solidarity.”
August 24, 2018
Coalition Calls on Senate to Delay Hearings on Supreme Court Nominee Until Records on His Career Can Be Reviewed.
August 27, 2018Webinar: Anti-Protest Legislation: Implications for Social Movements
On August 22, DRAD hosted a webinar about the trend of state legislation aimed at silencing some social movements. The webinar was co-hosted by the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law, Partnership for Civil Justice Fund, Greenpeace, Climate Disobedience Center, The Center for Media and Democracy, PEN America, UnKoch My Campus, National Lawyers Guild, and Piper Action Fund.
Since the end of 2016, over 60 bills have been proposed in state legislatures that limit the right to protest or remove liability for harm caused to protesters. This wave of anti-protest legislation comes on the heels of a wave of major protests by social movements for labor rights, women’s rights, gun control, racial justice, indigenous rights, government accountability, and environmental protections, to name a few. Lawmakers, in conjunction with certain think tanks, corporations, and law enforcement agencies, have proposed legislation designed to increase penalties for individual protesters, and the organizations that support them.
The webinar featured:
- Janaya Khan, Interim Campaign Director, Color of Change, and International Ambassador for the Black Lives Matter Network
- Maggie Ellinger-Lock, Staff Attorney, Greenpeace
- Nick Robinson, Legal Advisor, International Center for Not-for-Profit Law
- Chip Gibbons, Policy and Legislative Counsel, Defending Rights & Dissent
- Moderated by: Pooja Gehi, Executive Director, National Lawyers Guild
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
- To read more about the FBI’s focus on “black identity extremism” and its consequences, we recommend this article published on The American Prospect by Color of Change’s executive director, Rashad Robinson.
- US Protest Law Tracker, follows some of the most egregious proposed legislation over the past two years that would restrict the right to protest.
- A Toolkit to Take on the Legislating of Free Speech on Campus, American Association of University Professors.
- Research: Greenpeace USA report shows pipeline company behind new anti-protest legislation in the US.
- Research: Koch Network’s Student Protest Ban disguised as “Campus Free Speech”.
