Breaking Barriers, Building Democracy: A Call to Establish Political Inclusion and Equality

Saturday, Jan. 26, 2002
The Millennium Hotel
1313 Nicollet Mall
Downtown Minneapolis

Cost: $45 ($10 for students)
Note: Cost should not be a barrier. For sliding fee scale contact Eric Stiens
Phone: (612) 624-2904
Email: stien002@umn.edu

The 2000 presidential election and the events since September 11 have raised many questions and concerns about the state of our democracy. Many recognize that democracy in the United States and other countries has always been more of an ideal than a reality. The connections between our democracy's failures and persistent inequalities are hard to dispute. The goal of this conference is to begin working toward breaking the barriers and building solutions that will someday result in full civic participation for all.

The Connection between Democracy and Disparities

The 2000 presidential election and the tensions between civil liberties and national security that have been hotly debated since September 11 cause us to examine our most basic democratic commitments. During the past decade, there have been many debates in such areas as health, education and criminal justice. While there have been efforts to address inequalities in particular areas, we must now consider how this inequality transcends specific issues and calls into serious question our success at creating a truly democratic society.

Chronic disparities symbolize our failure to fully realize our democratic ideals, and this failure in turn perpetuates and intensifies these disparities. No truly democratic society would create and perpetuate such a vicious cycle.

During this conference, we will critically examine the nature of our democracy and how breakdowns in democracy and inequalities reinforce each other. The afternoon will be devoted to intensive small group discussions focused on engaging participants in increasing understanding of current barriers to democracy and devising a proactive agenda to inform our efforts to achieve a more perfect democracy in the future.

These discussions will be informed by national and local advocates and experts who will examine democracy as it is currently practiced and how it has been practiced at other times and in other places, as a means of understanding both where we are and what is possible. Conference leaders also will share pro-democratic efforts now underway.

The Institute on Race & Poverty, Headwaters Fund, the DFL Education Foundation, Minnesota Alliance for Progressive Action (MAPA), The Center for Urban and Regional Affairs (CURA) at the University of Minnesota and the Minneapolis Branch of NAACP have provided initial funding for this event.

Conference Keynote Speakers

Peter B. Edelman is a Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center. From 1993 until 1997, he worked in the Health and Human Services Department, first as Counselor to the Secretary and then as Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation. He resigned from that post when former President Bill Clinton signed welfare reform into law. He is a long-time advocate on federal and local issues affecting low-income people. He is the author of Adolescence and Poverty: Challenge for the 1990's and "So-Called 'Welfare Reform": Let's Talk About What's Really Needed to Get People Jobs," which was published in the Journal of Law and Inequality. Edelman's expertise is in issues of poverty, welfare, juvenile justice, and constitutional law.

Alexander Keyssar is the Matthew W. Stirling, Jr. Professor of History and Social Policy at Harvard. He has taught at Duke University, MIT, and Brandeis University. He has written widely about American history and contemporary affairs for The Nation, Times Literary Supplement, The New York Times, The New Republic and a host of other popular and academic publications. He is one of seven authors featured in The Unfinished Election of 2000, where he relates Florida's multiple forms of disenfranchisement to historical patterns. His latest book, The Right to Vote: The Contested History of Democracy in the United States was a finalist for both the Pulitzer Prize and the Los Angeles Times Book Award and was awarded the Beveridge Prize, from the American Historical Association, for the best book in American history. Keyssar's current research interests include election reform, the history of democracies, and the history of poverty.

john a. powell is the executive director at the Institute on Race & Poverty, which he established in 1993. He also is the Earl R. Larson Chair of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Law at the University of Minnesota Law School. powell was the national legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union from 1987 to 1993. He has written extensively on the intersections of race and poverty and how they affect U.S. society. He speaks nationally on related issues, including regionalism as a civil rights strategy, urban problems associated with urban sprawl, and issues associated with welfare reform. He is an editor of the recently released A Dream Deferred: Linking Housing and Education Policy, which was published by Lang Publishing, and an author of The Rights of Racial Minorities: The Basic ACLU Guide to Racial Minority Rights. powell's expertise is in the areas of civil rights, civil liberties and issues relating to race, poverty, and the law.