26th annual Social Justice Summit: Demanding ‘justice now’

The 26th annual Social Justice Summit will be happening from March 2 through March 7 with the theme “Demanding Radical Reform: Justice Now!!!”

This free week-long event incorporates featured speakers and workshops led by students, faculty, and community members surrounding the topic of social justice.

Student Co-coordinator Maya Habis has been helping organize the event since November of last year and said that the event is “meant to be very broad, very open, because what we’re really trying to do is just facilitate this space to create this dialogue to get it going.”

In addition to the community, faculty and student-led workshops will mainly be occurring on Saturday from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. One of the featured speakers, Abby Abinanti, will be presenting on Tuesday, March 3, while another featured speaker, Asao Inoue, will be presenting on Friday, March 6.

The keynote speaker, Mia Mingus, will also be presenting on Friday, March 1. Various other events will be occurring throughout the week at different places on campus. Abby Abinanti is the Chief Judge for the Yurok tribe and will be speaking about her approach to justice in her talk on Tuesday entitled “Creating Justice by Implementing Change.”

When asked about her approach, Abinanti said in a phone interview, “… we have created a justice system that is based on rights. You have the right to this, you have a right to that, you have a right to do this or not do this. Well, I’m from a culture where you don’t have any rights, you have responsibilities. That’s what defines our relationships. Not rights, responsibilities. And that’s hugely different.”

Both Maya Habis and co-coordinator Deema Hindawi spoke about the importance of understanding the different forms of practicing justice and how these different approaches can be brought together to create lasting change.

Hindawi said, “This is an event where people get to take in knowledge that they don’t have the ability to take in on a daily basis. It’s an event where everyone is welcome. And everyone is just able to come in and learn or listen.”

There is no registration required to attend the event, all are welcome to just
show up.

For any further questions or for information regarding the event, including a downloadable pdf of the entire program, visit summit.humboldt.edu, or contact summit@humboldt.edu.