Toward a New Student Insurgency: Critical Legal Theory and Multidimensional Social Justice

Queridas/os (dear ones):

At the upcoming National Lawyers Guild ("NLG") "Law for the People" convention, to be held in Washington, D.C., Oct. 31 - Nov. 4, 2007, a group of NLG members affiliated with the NLG's The United People of Color Caucus ("TUPOCC") and its Queer Caucus will lead a workshop, Toward a New Student Insurgency: Critical Legal Theory and Multidimensional Social Justice. See generally http://nlg.org/convention/. The workshop will be held on Saturday Nov. 3, during the 1:00-2:15pm workshop time slot. See http://nlg.org/convention/conv_schedule.php.

A description of the workshop follows. In subsequent posts, we will propose texts to read and discuss via this TUPOCC blog, "Legal Activists of Color." We invite people of good will to join us from throughout the NLG community and beyond -- both to read and discuss these texts and to meet in November in Washington, D.C.

Much love,

Marc-Tizoc González

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We have imagined and designed this workshop to catalyze NLG members’ self-education about critical legal theory’s insights into the multidimensionality of social justice.

By gathering NLG members of diverse backgrounds, identifications and interests, we plan to increase our understanding of the multiple dimensions in which power, oppression and radical possibility exist and operate. Moreover, the workshop will provide the opportunity to organize local reading and discussion groups from physically proximate NLG members, which we will connect into a network via online communication technologies.

By regularly discussing our local sociolegal conditions and multidimensional struggles in relation to texts of critical legal theory, NLG members will cultivate a sense of community based on shared antisubordination principles, community-based lawyering and ethical living practices. In collaborating across the U.S., Guild members can share how we have concretely related critical legal theory to our legal education and legal work and can evolve a multidimensional social justice praxis that transcends older models of lawyering into a new student- and youth-oriented insurgency.

The workshop will feature a discussion of key concepts pertaining to its goals, a brief speech by a TUPOCC co-chair, breakout sessions to form nascent reading-and-discussion groups, and a group discussion about transcending oppressive boundaries and resisting our normative socialization into the legal profession. Prior to the workshop, we will suggest readings and promote initial discussion online via the TUPOCC blog.