UNC School of Law’s Asian American Law Student Association (AALSA) hosted the inaugural Asian American Civil Rights Conference March 21, 2015. The conference, “Defining the Movement,” examined the historical roots of the Asian American Civil Rights Movement.
The conference featured a dramatic presentation of “Building Our Legacy: The Murder of Vincent Chin,” based on a script written by the Asian American Bar Association of New York and Frank H. Wu, chancellor and dean of UC Hastings College of the Law. Following the trial reenactment there was a panel discussion including Judge Denny Chin of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit; independent filmmaker Edward Lee; South Asian Americans Leading Together (SAALT) Executive Director Suman Raghunathan; and UNC School of Law Assistant Professor Catherine Kim.
The lunchtime keynote was by Chin and his wife Kathy Hirata Chin, a partner at Cadwalader in New York, and focused on Asian American legal history. The conference was punctuated with workshops that provided a hands-on exploration of current Asian American civil rights issues.
“It was a great day for the Asian American Law Students Association and for Carolina Law,” says Eric Muller, Dan K. Moore Distinguished Professor of Law in Jurisprudence and Ethics. “It was a day that brought much-needed attention to an often overlooked thread in the tapestry of American civil rights history.”
According to Caroline Keen 2L, president of AALSA and the executive director of the conference planning board, about 70 people attended the conference, including undergraduate and graduate students, lawyers, professors, faculty, deans and administration.
“It is only through collaboration in the Carolina community that we can continue to contextualize and complete the American civil rights narrative. Collaboration is the key to making a change,” Keen says.
Other students who were involved in the conference planning include AALSA members Josephine Kim 1L, Julie Chen 2L, Rachel Brunswig 2L, Hillary Li 1L, Yishi (Mike) Yin 1L, Sharon Lin 1L, Joshua Bennett 1L, and Duke University students Charlotte Ke and Richard Cao.
-April 1, 2015