Law professor and civil rights attorney speaks about intersectionality in social movements
Watch Britney Wilson’s UO Today interview
Many people associate shared group identities, experiences of oppression, political ideologies, or goals with a sense of greater social cohesion and belonging to a cause. While that is often the case, there are also many examples—both historical and contemporary—where members of otherwise seemingly aligned groups have navigated tension based on differences in perspective, approach, and even objectives. In some instances, these differences have led to strategic advantages and the development of specified roles in social justice spaces. In others, they have not.
In her talk “Down for the Cause: Grace, Space, and Belonging in Social Movements” on Tuesday, May 16, 2023, at 5:30 p.m. in 175 Knight Law Center, law professor and civil rights attorney Britney Wilson will explore the meaning, nature, and limitations of alignment in the context of social movements and advocacy, including whether and when alignment coincides with shared personal identity or experience and when it does not. She will also consider how and why members of marginalized groups may seek to protect and maintain self-determination over their own experiences and the impact of the concept of “belonging” on quests for external support. In doing so, Wilson will evaluate whether and how societal structures, including but not limited to, racism and ableism, affect strategy and positioning within social justice causes and potentially challenge the sense of “belonging” often believed to be inherent in such spaces.
Britney Wilson is an associate professor of Law and Director of the Civil Rights and Disability Justice Clinic at New York Law School. Prior to NYLS, Wilson was a staff attorney at the National Center for Law and Economic Justice, a Bertha Justice Fellow at the Center for Constitutional Rights, and a Marvin M. Karpatkin Fellow in the Racial Justice Program at the American Civil Liberties Union. Born with Cerebral Palsy, Wilson has written and spoken extensively about disability and the intersection of race and disability for various media outlets, including The Nation, Longreads, and This American Life. She has also testified about issues facing people with disabilities before both local and international governing bodies, including the New York City Council and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
Also an accomplished writer and artist, Wilson has published and performed short stories, creative nonfiction essays, and poetry, including on the HBO series Brave New Voices.
Wilson’s talk is the Oregon Humanities Center’s 2022–23 Tzedek Lecture and is part of its 2022–23 Belonging series. The lecture is free and open to the public and will be livestreamed. Register.