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Event Archives
April 4, 2008: The Political Animal Workshop
Event Name: The Political Animal Workshop -Leveraging State Ballot Initiatives to Ease Animal Suffering
Date: April 4 , 2008 from 1-5pm
Location: NYU School of Law, Furman Hall Room 210, 245 Sullivan Street.
Description:
State ballot initiatives have been an increasingly important tool used by animal advocates in their quest to prevent and ease animal suffering. This workshop will explore the ballot initiative process, how to craft language to avoid court challenges, and the intersection of ballot initiatives with the legislative process. Come hear case studies of the 2006 Arizona ballot initiative that succeeded in banning veal crates and gestation crates for breeding pigs, the 2008 Massachusetts ballot initiative to ban the commercial racing of dogs, and the 2008 California ballot initiative to prohibit veal crates, gestation crates for breeding pigs, and battery cages for egg-laying hens.
Speakers will include:
* Jon Lovvorn, The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS)
* Paul Shapiro, HSUS; Christine Dorchak, Grey2K USA
* Nancy Perry, HSUS
Free refreshments will be served!
Open to the public - bring ID to enter building.
This event is co-sponsored by the NYU American Constitution Society.
March 28, 2008: Young Lawyers Advocating for Animals
Event Name: Young Lawyers Advocating for Animals
Date: March 28, 2008 from 6-9pm
Location: New York University School of Law, Vanderbilt Hall, Room 210; Reception to follow in Golding Lounge, all at 40 Washington Square South, Manhattan
Description:
Why are you here? Do you remember why you came to law school? In this nation's next social movement, what role will you play?
Come meet five recent graduates who never forgot and are making the law that makes a change.
* Robin Bernstein, Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine
* Sarah Conant, Humane Society of the United States
* Cheryl Leahy, Compassion Over Killing
* Matthew Liebman, Animal Legal Defense Fund
* Delcianna Winders, Meyer Glitzenstein & Crystal
Learn how you can: ensure the prosecution of animal abusers, help stop cruel and unnecessary animal research, promote truth in advertising of animal products, protect animals' habitat, and much more. We all have a role to play.
Complimentary dinner, beer, and wine will be served, then join us for a night out in the Village.
Open to the public. Please bring ID to enter the building.
For more information, including speaker bios, please visit: www.nyusaldf.org/YoungAdvocatesForAnimals.html
March 13, 2008: Run of the "Mill" Cruelty? How to Help End Puppy Mills
Event Name: Run of the "Mill" Cruelty? How to Help End Puppy Mills
Date: March 13, 2008 from 4:30-6pm
Location: NYU School of Law, Furman Hall Room 210, 245 Sullivan Street.
Description: Most pet store puppies come from substandard commercial breeding operations called puppy mills. Come hear Cori Menkin of the ASPCA speak about puppy mills in New York and nationwide and learn about legal approaches to ending cruelty to dogs.
Talk will be followed by food, beer & wine.
Open to the public. Please bring ID to enter the building.
December 1, 2007: Dangerous Dogs and Reckless Owners
Event Name: Muzzling Dangerous Dogs and Prosecuting Reckless Owners: Commonsense Solutions for Politicians and Practitioners
Date: December 1, 2007 (All day)
Location: Lipton Hall, D'Agostino Hall
Description: There are 73.9 million dogs living in the United States. A recent poll revealed that 69 percent of Americans view their pets as members of their families. However, severe dog attacks are generating more media attention than ever before, and legislators often react by passing dangerous-dog ordinances. Some dangerous-dog ordinances fail to adequately address the problem of dangerous dogs and reckless owners. Some ordinances and statutes have been ruled unconstitutional because they infringe on the property rights of owners. This one-day session will examine the constitutionality of canine profiling, effective dangerous-dog/reckless-owner ordinances and suggested ordinances to protect citizens from dog bites will be discussed, a case study of the breed ban in Prince George's County, and the factors involved in fatal dog. Successful prosecutors will also discuss what is involved in litigating these high-profile cases, and private attorneys will talk about their successful representation of dog owners appealing a dangerous-dog determination. Dr. Randy Lockwood will speak on the role of the expert witness in dangerous-dog cases. Insurance issues regarding breeds will also be discussed. Larry Cunningham, author of The Case Against Dog Breed Discrimination by Homeowners' Insurance Companies (11 Conn. Ins. L.J. 1), will discuss canine profiling done by insurance companies. Bernard Rollins, renowned philosopher, will talk about the implications of canine profiling and the human-animal bond.
November 19 , 2007: Wind Power: Environmental and Animal Law Issues
Event Name: Discussion of the Environmental and Animal Law Issues Surrounding Wind Power
Date: November 19, 2007 from 1:30 to 2:30PM
Location: Vanderbilt Hall, Room 216
Description: Kim Ockene, a Washington, D.C. attorney, will address environmental and animal law concerns that arise as the use wind power becomes a more prevalent. As concern grows about the effects of global climate change, renewable energy tax credits and low operational costs are enticing private industry to invest in wind power. Absent a nationwide comprehensive plan, these facilities are being sited on private and public lands along ridges and in the ocean, sometimes directly in wildlife migration corridors or in designated habitat for protected species. This raises concern about how specific sites can adversely affect wildlife, especially birds and bats, through direct collisions, diverted migrations, and habitat fragmentation. We all agree wind power development is desirable, but what factors should determine where to erect wind turbines?
November 9, 2007: How to Win Laws for Animals
Event Name: How to Win Laws for Animals
Date: November 9, 2007 from 6:30 to 8:00PM
Location: Vanderbilt Hall, Room 214
Description: Julie E. Lewin will give a talk on how to get political for animals to win them the laws that they need. Ms. Lewin will discuss why you should launch a voting bloc in your town, City, County or State, and the simple steps it takes to do it. Ms. Lewin's much praised how-to book, GET POLITICAL FOR ANIMALS AND WIN THE LAWS THEY NEED, will be available at the event. "This superb book is a complete activist's primer ...should be read by every advocate and organization...No one understands the interplay between lawmaking and elections, or explains them more clearly, than Julie Lewin." ---CT lawmaker Diana Urban, humane award recipient. This talk is widely applicable to all grassroots movements that want to use the law-making process for change.
October 16 , 2007: What is Animal Law?
Event Name: What is Animal Law?
Date: October 16, 2007 at 6:30PM
Location: Golding Lounge West, Vanderbilt Hall
Description: David Wolfson, who will teach Animal Law at NYU this spring, will provide a general background on animal law: what it is, how it intersects with other fields of law (in particular, environmental law), and the different ways of using the legal system to advocate for animals.
April 20, 2007: Environmental Approaches to Animal Litigation
Event Name: Environmental Approaches to Animal Litigation - A workshop exploring conventional and novel applications
Date: Friday, April 20, 2007 from 1-5 p.m.
Location: Furman Hall, Room 212, NYU School of Law, 245 Sullivan Street, NYC
Description: Learn strategies for using environmental statutes such as the National Environmental Policy Act, Clean Water Act, and Endangered Species Act to score courtroom victories for animals in the wild, on farms, and in circuses.
Speakers: James Barrett (Latham & Watkins), Andrew Hawley (Defenders of Wildlife), Jonathan Lovvorn (The Humane Society of the United States ), Tanya Sanerib (Meyer, Glitzenstein & Crystal), and Sarah Uhlemann (The Humane Society of the United States). David Wolfson of Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy, who teaches the animal law course at NYU, will moderate.
This workshop is free & open to the public, but seating is limited so you must register. Please contact Jessica Almy (jea281@nyu.edu) to RSVP.
April 11 , 2007: Screening of award-winning documentary "The Witness"
Event Name: Special screening of award-wining documentary "The Witness" followed by a talk by Marisa Miller
Date: Wednesday, April 11th at 7PM
Location: Vanderbilt Hall, Room 216, 40 Washington Square South, NY, NY
Description: “THE WITNESS, a 43-minute film that has won six Best Documentary awards at film festivals across America...tells the inspiring story of Eddie Lama, a tough construction contractor from Brooklyn whose chance encounter with a kitten completely transforms his life. Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist of the Los Angeles Times, Howard Rosenberg, said: ‘The Witness is one man's truth that cries out for mass exposure… may be the most important film about animals ever made.'” www.tribeofheart.org
Free and open to the public. Photo ID required to enter building.
Free vegetarian tapas!
March 24, 2007: UPC Conference on Inamissible Comparisons
Event Name: United Poultry Concerns' 7th Annual Conference on Inadmissible Comparisons
Date: March 24-25, 2007
Location: D'Agostino Hall-Lipton Hall
Description: Inadmissible Comparisons asks: Can the Holocaust be compared with African American slavery or the Native American genocide? Can any of these experiences be related to those of animals on today's factory farms? Recently, a number of writers and thinkers have sought to draw parallels between the suffering of one group of individuals and another, and incurred the wrath of those who consider their experience unique. This conference explores why such comparisons are offered and asks whether they should or should not be made. It examines the rhetoric and images of those comparisons and the agendas that might lie behind them, while interrogating the need for comparative thinking in the first place. Free to NYU Students!
More Information: http://www.upc-online.org/Forums/120306forum.html
Nov. 1, 2006: What is Animal Law?
Event Name: What is Animal Law?
Date: November 1, 2006
Time: 6PM
Location: Golding Lounge West, Vanderbilt Hall
Description: David Wolfson, who will teach Animal Law at NYU this spring, will provide a general background on animal law: what it is, how it intersects with other fields of law (in particular, environmental law), and the different ways of using the legal system to advocate for animals.
Apr. 15, 2006: New York Area Animal Law Workshop
Event Name: New York Area Animal Law Workshop
Date: April 15, 2006
Description: The workshop was an opportunity for law students to learn from experienced attorneys and advocates in an informal and small group setting.
The topics included:
* forming and sustaining student organizations
* developing projects for animal law students including influencing legislation and agency rules and regulations
* career options in (and involving) animal law
Apr. 14, 2006: Confronting Barriers to the Court Room for Animal Advocates
Event Name: Confronting Barriers to the Court Room for Animal Advocates: Standing, Causes of Action, and Cultural Transitions
Date: April 14, 2006
Description: Top scholars and litigators from around the country converged at New York University to discuss at a symposium some of the biggest boundaries facing advocates in their efforts to litigate on behalf on animals.
Panel topics included:
* the constant interchange between the legal and popular views of animals
* legal standing as it applies to animals and their advocates, covering both standing for animals themselves and for those who wish to advocate on their behalf
* the legal causes of action available to animal advocates, including common law, statutory law, and constitutional law, analyzing the merits and implications of each, and some new proposed causes of action
March 27, 2006: Screening of Peaceable Kingdom
Event Name: Screening of Peaceable Kingdom
Date: March 27, 2006
Description: Peaceable Kingdom, a 70-minute documentary that Dr. Jane Goodall has called "a masterpiece," was shown and a discussion was held afterward. The film is about a fourth-generation Montana cattle rancher who experiences an epiphany during a health crisis and resolves to devote his life to undoing the damage done by his agribusiness empire; a Michigan beef farmer whose childhood wounds are healed by the unexpected affection of a sanctuary cow, and a young couple who stumble upon a massive injustice hidden away by the factory farming industry, and find they cannot turn away, even though they can only help one animal at a time.
Oct. 27, 2005: Endangered Moon Bears & The Bear Bile Trade
Event Name: Endangered Moon Bears & the Bear Bile Trade
Date: October 27, 2005
Description: Andrea Mowrer, Animals Asia Foundation's United States representative, showed documentary footage of the rescue and rehabilitation of nearly 200 Asiatic black bears in China who had been kept in cages not much larger than their own bodies so that their bile could be harvested for traditional medicine.
Oct. 10, 2005: Gorillas in the Mist: The Story of Dian Fossey
Event Name: Gorillas in the Mist: The Story of Dian Fossey
Date: October 10, 2005
Description: Law Students for Human Rights and the Student Animal Legal Defense Fund hosted a screening of Gorillas in the Mist: The Story of Dian Fossey . Afterward, Marie Scheffers and Ari Bassin lead a discussion about the present state of the gorillas living in Rwanda and the human rights issues raised by the film.
Sept. 20, 2005: So What Exactly is Animal Law? A Talk with David Wolfson
Event Name: So What Exactly is Animal Law? A Talk with David Wolfson
Date: September 20, 2005
Description: Animal Law professor David Wolfson provided a general background on animal-related law: what it is, how it intersects with other fields of law, the different ways of using the legal system to advocate for animals, and the various career options in the field.
Mar. 30, 2005: Speciesism with Joan Dunayer
Event Name: Speciesism with Joan Dunayer
Date: March 30, 2005
Description: Joan Dunayer presented ideas from her new book Speciesism , which compellingly critiques speciesism both outside and inside the animal rights movement. Uniquely egalitarian, Speciesism outlines nonspeciesist thought, law, and action. Dunayer also signed copies of the book.
Mar. 22, 2005: Meat Out
Event Name: Meat Out
Date: March 22, 2005
Description: NYU SALDF hosted a table to educate people about the environmental, animal welfare and heath implications of meat consumption, and to encourage individuals to try a day or a week without meat.
Mar. 21, 2005: Move the Message
Event Name: Move the Message with Communications Consultant Josephine Bellaccomo
Date: March 21, 2005
Description: Josephine Bellaccomo delivered a step-by-step process, complete with tips, tactics, strategies examples and exercises, to ensure that your message is focused, powerful and unstoppable. Her ideas are essential for activists and concerned individuals working to create lasting change.
Mar. 7, 2005: The Sexual Politics of Meat
Event Name: The Sexual Politics of Meat with Feminist Author Carol Adams
Date: March 7, 2005
Description: Feminist author Carol Adams presented her slide show and a discussion exploring the ways in which popular culture presents images of race, gender, and species to further oppressive attitudes. Refreshments followed.
Jan. 21, 2005: Though the Heavens May Fall
Event Name: Though the Heavens May Fall: The Landmark Trial the Lead to the End of Human Slavery
Date: January 21, 2005
Description: Steven Wise, a trial lawyer and legal historian, discussed his new book , which uncovers layer upon layer of fascinating revelations in a case which threatened, according to slave owners, to bring the economy of the British Empire to a crashing halt.
Jan. 19, 2005: Humans, Other Animals & the Rest of Nature
Event Name: Humans, Other Animals & the Rest of Nature
Date: January 19, 2005
Description: Dale Jamieson, Professor of Environmental Studies and Philosophy at NYU and a leading figure in environmental ethics and bioethics discussed his book Morality's Progress , the summation of nearly three decades of work by that tells a unified story about various aspects of the morality of our relationships to animals and to nature. The talk focused on the philosophical relationship between environmental ethics and animal liberation.
Dec. 4, 2004: Peaceable Kingdom
Event Name: Peaceable Kingdom
Date: December 4, 2004
Description: Screening of a documentary that portrays the riveting stories of people struggling with their conscience around some of our society's most fundamental assumptions. An inspiring story of personal redemption, compassion, healing and hope, Peaceable Kingdom is described by many of its viewers as "a life changing experience."
Nov. 16, 2004: Captive Beauty: Zoo Portraits
Event Name: Captive Beauty: Zoo Portraits
Date: November 16, 2004
Description: Photographer Frank Noelker presented a slideshow and discussion of his recent work, which challenges viewers to consider the nature, purpose and effects of zoos.
Nov. 9, 2004: Eternal Treblinka: Our Treatment of Animals & the Holocaust
Event Name: Eternal Treblinka: Our Treatment of Animals & the Holocaust
Date: November 9, 2004
Description: Author, social historian and holocaust educator Charles Patterson spoke on the origins of human domination and the emergence of industrialized slaughter in modern times.
Oct. 18, 2004: Them: A Look Inside Slaughter Houses
Event Name: Them: A Look Inside Slaughter Houses
Date: October 18, 2004
Description: Author/artist Marjorie Spiegel presented a slide presentation and discussion previewing her book, THEM , a photo-documentary of United States slaughterhouses.
Oct. 1, 2004: World Farm Animals Day
Event Name: World Farm Animals Day
Date: October 1, 2004
Description: NYU SALDF hosted an information table to educate people about industrial agriculture and its implications for farmed animals.
Sept. 20, 2004: Is Junk Food the Next Tobacco?
Event Name: Is Junk Food the Next Tobacco?
Date: September 20, 2004
Description: Michele Simon, JD, MPH spoke about efforts to effect food policy on the state and local levels, with a focus on how advocates are using local policies and other legal strategies beyond litigation to take on Big Food.
Sept. 7, 2004: Empty Cages
Event Name: Empty Cages
Date: September 7, 2004
Description: Tom Regan, emeritus professor of philosophy at North Carolina State University, Raleigh lectured and read from his book, Empty Cages: Facing the Challenge of Animal Rights .