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 us: lberns@nyclu.org
 

Past Events

Chapter to Focus on Police Reform at Annual Schwarzschild Memorial Lecture

On Thursday, Oct. 27 at Manhattanville College, the New York Civil Liberties Union and the Connie Hogarth Center for Social Action will host the 13th Annual Henry Schwarzschild Memorial Lecture, this year focusing on police reform, racial policing and the controversial stop-and-frisk practice. This event is free and open to the public.

This year's featured speaker is Robert Gangi, senior policy advocate for the Urban Justice Center and former executive director of the Correctional Association of New York who has fought throughout his career for the humane treatment of prisoners and the protection of their rights. Gangi is currently leading the Police Reform Organizing Project (PROP), a new initiative of the Urban Justice Center.

Gangi will speak on the need for police reform and will look at questions such as: Do practices such as stop-and-frisk violate the rights of people of color? Do the police frequently overstep the law in their zeal to apprehend and convict suspects? Are police officers who physically abuse people investigated, disciplined or punished?

The NYCLU is a leader in the movement bringing attention to the overuse of stop-and-frisk by police and has for years been fighting against its blanket use on people of color. Over the past few years, the NYCLU sued the NYPD to force it to make public the Department's electronic database detailing police stops; sued on behalf of a New York Post reporter who was the victim of racial profiling; challenged the Department's practice of keeping innocent New Yorkers who were stopped-and-frisked in an NYPD database; and, just this spring, challenged the NYPD's of illegally stopping and frisking passengers of livery cabs.

In addition to its work in the courts, the NYCLU is also organizing around the issue and has pushed the issue to the forefront of public discussion. Culminating a campaign started by the NYCLU in 2007, the New York State Legislature last summer passed a bill that protects New Yorkers' privacy rights by ending the NYPD's practice of keeping a computer database of completely innocent people swept up in the Department's stop-and-frisk program.

The police reform lecture is part of an annual lecture series that honors the contributions of Henry Schwarzschild, who served as the executive director of the Lawyers' Constitutional Defense Committee in 1964. Later, he joined the ACLU staff and became the coordinator of the national death penalty campaign. He was a tireless and eloquent advocate against capital punishment.

Thursday, Oct. 27, 7 p.m.
Manhattanville College's Reid Castle
2900 Purchase St.
Purchase, New York
 

The Lower Hudson Valley Chapter will celebrate 220th anniversary of the ratification of the Bill of Rights at our annual Bill of Rights Day celebration on Thursday, December 15 at St. Paul’s Church in Mt. Vernon.

St. Paul’s Church is a National Historic Site and a shrine to our fundamental rights and liberties. The church stands at the edge of what was then the Eastchester Village Green, where a local election was held and in 1733.

A newspaper editor named John Peter Zenger criticized the election, particularly the manner in which village leaders arranged to have their preferred candidates win. In response to his criticism, Zenger was arrested, jailed and tried for seditious libel.

His trial and acquittal by jury formed a cornerstone for the rights embodied in the First Amendment.

We have invited students from Westchester and Rockland County high schools to discuss this year’s Bill of Rights Day Essay Contest topic on addressing bullying in public schools.

Our program will include speakers, questions and comments from the students. Prizes will be awarded to the winners. This event, which will run from 10 a.m. to noon, will be open to the public.

Thursday, Dec. 15, 10 a.m. to noon
St. Paul’s Church
Mt. Vernon
 

Past Events

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.
 

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.
 

 

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.
 

 

Share this:
  • Facebook
  • del.icio.us
  • Twitter
  • Digg
  • StumbleUpon
  • MySpace
  • Technorati