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Events
Come to our board meetings!
The chapter’s monthly board meeting is open to all members.
Meetings are held at our chapter office and run from 6:30 to 8 p.m. on alternating 1st Tuesday or Thursday of each month.
Please call or email if you would like to attend. Phone 914.997.7479. Email lberns@nyclu.org
Events
Annual Dinner
The Lower Hudson Valley Chapter's Annual Dinner will be held at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, June 12 at The Riverview, which is located at 1 Warburton Aven in Hastings-on-Hudson. We will honor Linda Berns on her retirement after 15 years as the chapter's director.
We will present the Myron Isaacs Community Service Award to Joanne Robinson Boettcher and Roberta Robinson Frazier, both of Yonkers. The honorees, who are twin sisters, are veteran community activists who have worked with the NAACP, the Black Womens' Political Caucus, WESPAC Foundation, Peace Action and Westchester Black Democrats.
Prof. Randolph McLaughlin of Pace University School of Law, a famed civil rights attorney, will be the keynote speaker.
Past Events
• Public Forum on Voter Suppression Efforts, March 27, 2012
• Students Explore Bullying Issues at Annual Bill of Rights Day Event, December 15, 2011.
• 13th Annual Schwarzschild Memorial Lecture Addresses Police Reform, October 27, 2011.
Know Your Rights: A Community Forum on Youth and the Law in White Plains
On Saturday, May 14 at 10 a.m., the chapter is co-hosting a forum on youth and student rights at the Greenburgh Town Hall. We will talk about youth rights relating to a number of issues, including cyber bullying, school dress codes and police-youth confrontations.
Featured speakers include Lee Trollinger, Head of the Greenburgh Community Center Youth Group; Lower Hudson valley Chapter Director Linda Berns, and a representative of the Greenburgh Police Department. The White Plains/Greenburgh NAACP youth group, Westchester Blacks in Law Enforcement, and African-American Men of Westchester County are forum co-sponsors. The town hall is located at 177 Hillside Ave. in White Plains.
Chapter Confronts Challenges to 14th Amendment with Lively Forum
NYCLU Advocacy Director Udi Ofer
On March 29, the Lower Hudson Valley Chapter held a public forum called, “Confronting Challenges to the 14th Amendment.” The informative event was held to discuss the recent proposals to reinterpret the citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment. This movement threatens to take away the birthright citizenship of those born to undocumented parents. More than 70 people attended.
NYCLU Advocacy Director Udi Ofer served as the keynote speaker. He talked about the history and legal cases that support the rights of those undocumented. He later clarified the facts from the myths surrounding about undocumented immigrants. Ofer went on to answer audience members’ questions on various aspects of the legality of immigration.
Annual Dinner honoring advocates with the Stanley and Doris Schear Champion of Housing Rights Award on Monday, May 16, 2011
Established in 1968, Westchester Residential Opportunities, Inc. (WRO) is a non-profit organization that works to “promote equal, affordable and accessible housing opportunities.” One of the major projects they undertook was investigating housing practices in Westchester, Rockland, and Putnam counties. WRO recently released the findings in their Fair Housing Testing Report, which reveal that though there was a reduction in race-based discrimination rates, many minorities were still being denied their housing rights.
Karl Bertrand is the founder and first executive director of Yonkers’ very first homeless shelter, The Sharing Community. He founded Program Design and Development in 1989, where he developed new programs in areas ranging from law enforcement and HIV/AIDS to housing, health care and youth services. Mr. Bertrand now coordinates the Continuum of Care-funded Shelter Plus Care programs for the Westchester County Department of Community Mental Health.
Rosa Boone is the executive director of the Westchester Coalition for the Hungry & Homeless, Inc. where she coordinates the efforts of over 140 Westchester service providers in serving over 240,000 citizens. Ms. Boone was also appointed by Mayor Joseph Delfino as a commissioner for the White Plains Housing Authority.
Tickets are $100.00 per person, but you if you purchase before April 15, 2011 they are only $90.00 per person. Students can purchase a ticket for $50.00. Commemorative journal ads can also be purchased. For more information and reservations please call us at 914-997-7479.
Monday, May 16, 2011 at The Riverview, 1 Warburton Ave., Hastings-On-Hudson, NY
Should everyone born in the U.S. have the right to citizenship?
Confronting Attacks on the 14th Amendment.
Our Annual Meeting will be followed immediately by a public forum: "Confronting Attacks on the 14th Amendment." NYCLU Advocacy Director Udi Ofer will be the keynote speaker. A panel discussion of community members will examine the issue from the perspective of people who were born in the United States with undocumented parents.
The citizenship clause of the 14 Amendment is under threat in Congress and several state legislatures. The clause protects core American values of fairness and equality. The Congress and state legislatures cannot pass bills to deliberately circumvent the Constitution and this type of legislation should be rejected outright.
“In America, our rights are based on fairness and equal treatment under the law, not who your parents are or what they did or whether today’s politicians approve of them,” said Linda Berns, director of the NYCLU’s Lower Hudson Valley chapter. “The right to citizenship should not be subject to the political and discriminatory winds of the day.”
The 14th Amendment can only be changed by a constitutional amendment, not by statute. State and federal politicians can’t just decide which people born in the U.S. are worthy of citizenship and which are not.
• 12th Annual Schwarzschild Memorial Lecture, November 29, 2010
• Lower Hudson Valley Chapter Celebrates Banned Books Week 2010, September 2010
Annual Dinner & Presentation of Myron Isaacs Community Service Award
The Lower Hudson Valley Chapter of the NYCLU held its Annual Dinner on Tuesday, June 8 at the Riverview in Hastings-on-Hudson.
Victor Navasky, our keynote speaker, has served as editor, publisher and now publisher emeritus of The Nation. He is also the George Delacorte Professor of Magazine Journalism at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, where he directs the Delacorte Center of Magazines and chairs the Columbia Journalism Review. He has served as an editor on The New York Times Magazine.
His books include Kennedy Justice, Naming Names (which won a National Book Award) and A Matter of Opinion (which won the 2005 George Polk Book Award and the 2006 Ann M. Sperber Prize). The New York Times wrote that, "Anybody who has ever dreamed of starting a magazine, or worried that the country is losing the ability to speak seriously to itself, should read A Matter of Opinion..."
He was introduced by Hamilton Fish, senior advisor and president emeritus of The Nation Institute.
The Chapter presented the Myron Isaacs Community Service Award to three dedicated advocates at the forefront of immigrants’ rights in the LowerHudsonValley.
• Gail Golden co-chairs the Rockland Immigration Coalition and sits on the board of directors for the New York Immigration Coalition.
• Martha Lopez is the former Westchester director of Hispanic affairs to the county executive and was the assistant director of the Washingtonville Housing Alliance in Mamaroneck for the previous 18 years.
• Betsy Palmieri is the executive director of the Hudson Valley Community Coalition, a coalition working to change the conversation about immigration in the Hudson Valley. She is also on the steering committee of the NY State Interfaith Network for Immigration Reform, and a member of the board of directors of the New York Immigration Coalition.
• Rally for Immigration Reform, May 1, 2010
• Voices of Immigration: Firsthand Accounts of a Broken System, March 16, 2010
• Bill of Rights Day 2009, December 15, 2009
• 11th Annual Schwarzschild Lecture Against the Death Penalty, October 29, 2009
• Banned Books Week, September 26 to October 3, 2009
• NYCLU Lower Hudson Valley Chapter Annual Dinner, May 21, 2009
• New NYS Drug Policy Discussion At '09 Annual Meeting, March 31, 2009.