On March 7th, Prof. Susan Sturm will be hosting a panel and talk discussing the themes of her latest publication, What Might Be: Confronting Racism to Transform Our Institutions. This event is not just about the book—it’s about coming together to explore how we can navigate the paradoxes of change work and reimagine what is possible. We will have Susan Sturm, Martha Minow, Anurima Bhargava, Alejo Rodriguez, and Elz Cuya Jones as panelists.

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Panel: 2pm-4pm JGH 104
Reception: 4pm-5pm JGH Case Lounge 701

Seyla Benhabib (Columbia Law School) and Ayelet Shachar (University of Berkeley, Law School) discuss their book Lawless Zones, Rightless Subjects: Migration, Asylum and Shifting Borders

Responding to ever-increasing pressures of migration, states, supranational, and subnational actors deploy complex moves and maneuvers to reconfigure borders, rights, and territory, giving rise to a changing legal cartography of international relations and international law. The purpose of this volume is to study this new reconfiguration of rights, territoriality, and jurisdiction, employing legal, historical, philosophical, critical, and postcolonial perspectives.
With the participation of Gillian Lester (Professor of Law and Former Dean of Columbia Law School), Susanna Mancini (Professor of Law, University of Bologna), Michael Doyle (University Professor, Columbia University), Ayten Gündogdu (Associate Professor, Barnard College) and Frédéric Mégret (Hans & Tamar Oppenheimer Chair in Public International Law, McGill University, James S. Carpentier Visiting Professor, Columbia Law School)

The Homecoming: Screening and Discussion

A changing perspective on migration and cross-cultural ties

BBC Africa Eye’s The Homecoming explores how marginalized communities in France are grappling with rising nationalism, police violence, and deepening social tensions—challenges that echo far beyond the country’s borders. The documentary follows young French people of African descent as they turn to Senegal, searching for what they see as a better life—a reversal of the migration their parents made decades earlier. Along the way, it captures the struggles of rebuilding in an unfamiliar land, caught between two worlds—one they left behind and one they are hoping to call home.

Following the screening, filmmaker Nathalie Jimenez and Prof. Aida Alami will discuss the film and its themes of belonging, identity, and the evolving relationship between Africa and its diaspora, in a conversation moderated by Prof. Azmat Khan.

6:00pm, Lecture Hall, 3rd Floor, Pulitzer Hall, Columbia Journalism School

This event is co-sponsored by the Simon and June Li Center for Global Journalism, the African Journalism Students Association, and the African Students Association at Columbia University.

Registration required: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/1252055434509?aff=oddtdtcreator

Walk-ins will not be permitted.

Refreshments will be provided.

Dr. Cheryl Anderson, Professor and Dean of Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science at University of California, San Diego, will be presenting “Traveling the Last Mile: The Road to the Global Impact of Healthy Diets on Cardiovascular Health” at the Annual Granville H. Sewell Distinguished Lecture.

Cheryl A.M. Anderson, PhD, MPH, MS, is a Professor and the Founding Dean of the Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science. Dr. Anderson received her doctoral degree from the University of Washington, and her Master of Public Health degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. At UCSD, Dr. Anderson is the Director of the UCSD Center of Excellence in Health Promotion and Equity. Her research focus is on nutrition and chronic disease prevention in under-served human populations. Dr. Anderson is a Fellow of the American Heart Association, and is the Chair of the American Heart Association’s Nutrition Committee and Vice Chair on the council on Epidemiology and Prevention. She was elected as a member of the National Academy of Medicine in 2016.

In-person attendance is available to Columbia affiliates including alumni and collaborators. Affiliates outside of Columbia are welcome to register to attend via Zoom or in-person.

A panel with experts discussing the upcoming challenges for Sheinbaum during the second Trump administration.

With:

Will Freeman, Council on Foreign Relations

Alberto Ramos, Goldman Sachs

Viridiana Ríos, Milenio and El País

Moderated by:

Vicky Murillo, ILAS/PolSci/SIPA-IGP, Columbia University

The event will be in person and livestreamed at @ilascolumbia3354

If you are attending in person, please register no later than March 7, at 12pm. Registrations will close after that time.

Is there such a thing as a ‘queer radical tradition?’ And what is the relationship between queerness and Marxism?

Alex Stoffel joins us to discuss his new book Eros and Empire: The Transnational Struggle for Sexual Freedom in the United States.

This talk reconsiders the history of radical queer politics since 1968. Against common framings of queer politics as either a progressive campaign for state recognition or as a subcultural rejection of prevailing gender norms, it provides an alternative view of queer radicalism that clarifies its true scale. Revisiting the gay liberation movement, Black lesbian feminism, and AIDS activism, it explores the relationship between struggles for sexual freedom and questions of capital accumulation, empire, and state violence. The queer radical tradition is shown to have not only conditioned the trajectory of LGBTI history, but also to have radicalized wider anti-imperialist, socialist, and abolitionist struggles past and present.

Dr. Alex Stoffel is an Assistant Professor in International Politics at Queen Mary University of London. His research takes up critical questions regarding the intersections of sexuality, race, and desire within capitalist expansion. He has published in, among other journals, International Studies Quarterly, The European Journal of International Relations, The International Feminist Journal of Politics, and Salvage and is an editor of the journal Historical Materialism, where he convenes the Sexuality and Political Economy Network.

Response will be given by Tulio Bucchioni, PhD candidate in LAIC/ICLS/ISSG. This event is cosponsored by the Institute for Comparative Literature and Society, and the Research Initiative in the Global Histories of Sexualities.

Click HERE to RSVP

754 Schermerhorn Ext.

The Human Rights Institute proudly presents our Spring event series on:

Activism Against Authoritarianism

This series is co-sponsored by: Columbia Law Students Human Rights Association, Columbia Journal of Transnational Law, and the Columbia Human Rights Law Review

We invite you to join us at our second event for a discussion with:

Gulika Reddy, Director, Human Rights Clinic, Stanford Law School

Topic: How can activists sustain their work through years of repressive governments? In the face of daily abuse, many activists feel overwhelmed and in despair. What is the role of hope in advancing change? Scholar and advocate Gulika Reddy will share her recent work on “transformative hope” as well as her experiences as an activist in India and the United States.

When: Tuesday, March 11, 2025 | 12:10pm – 1:10pm

Where: Columbia Law School | Jerome Greene Annex

Lunch will be provided.

Please register here

Ethics Grand Rounds: Ethical Approaches to Migrant Health: A Membership Based Account 

The ethical imperative to protect the health of migrants in the United States is grounded in multiple frameworks, including human rights, public health ethics, and justice-based theories. This Ethics Grand Rounds will focus on a membership-based account, which argues that undocumented immigrants are embedded members of society who contribute economically, socially, and culturally—entitling them to health protections that protect their opportunities. Using restrictive migrant health policies as a case study, Dr. Thalia Porteny will examine how exclusionary policies that limit access to healthcare coverage result in poorer health outcomes, particularly in mental health. She will present an evidence base demonstrating how these policies exacerbate disparities, increase healthcare costs, and undermine ethical commitments to reciprocity and fairness. Ultimately, this talk will explore policy pathways and advocacy efforts that align with ethical principles and public health goals, emphasizing the role of clinicians, institutions, and policymakers in promoting more inclusive approaches to migrant health.

Join us on March 11th for a conversation on Migrant Health with Thalia Porteny, PhD, MSc, and Division of Ethics Chief Sandra Soo-Jin Lee, PhD. The discussion will include a Q&A session with guest speaker Eunice Rendón Cárdenas, PhD, an expert in migrant health and the Executive Director of Agenda Migrante and Red VIRAL.

Ethics Grand Rounds is a series organized by the Division of Ethics in the Department of Medical Humanities & Ethics. The goal of Ethics Grand Rounds is to engage our community of health professionals, scholars, scientists and trainees across career stages and disciplines by elevating important topics and debates in medical ethics that relate to clinical practice, research, implementation, and education.

Reserve your in-person seat using the button below.

Can’t attend in person? Register to watch virtually via zoom.

The Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision in June 2022 removed federal protections for the right to abortion, fundamentally changing the abortion landscape in the United States. This seminar will present first-of-its kind evidence on the unequal impact of the Dobbs decision on fertility rates and infant mortality, both across and within states, and by several subgroups. Drawing from vital statistics and US Census Bureau data from 2012 through 2023 for all 50 states and the District of Columbia, this study uses a Bayesian panel data model to evaluate state-by-subgroup specific changes in fertility and infant mortality associated with complete or 6-week abortion bans in 14 US states.

Suzanne Bell, PhD, MPH, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Population, Family and Reproductive Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She is a demographer who studies fertility and related behaviors, examining patterns of contraceptive use, abortion, and infertility, and factors that contribute to disparities in reproductive health outcomes.

Register Here

Healing with Intention

Rana L Awdish, MD
Director, Pulmonary Hypertension Program, Henry Ford Hospital
Medical Director of Care Experience, Henry Ford Health System

Lecture 12:00-1:00 pm

Join via Zoom

Decriminalizing Domestic Violence

Date: Wednesday, March 12, 2025, from 12:15-1:45pm

Location: The Interchurch Center, 61 Claremont Avenue (Entrance between 119th & 120th Street)

Series: Patriarchal Violence

Speaker: Leigh Goodmark (University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law)

Respondent: Eleanor Johnson (Columbia University)

Abstract: For more than forty years, criminalization has been the primary approach to addressing intimate partner violence in the United States. Intent on ensuring that intimate partner violence was treated like any other crime, anti-violence feminists campaigned for stronger enforcement of the criminal law against those accused of violence. Bolstered by billions of dollars in federal funding, states have enacted laws and policies mandating arrest and prosecution in cases involving domestic violence and increasing sentences for crimes of violence. But criminalization has not decreased or deterred intimate partner violence. Instead, criminalization exacerbates the correlates of intimate partner violence and has serious consequences for the people that it was meant to help. This talk will argue that we should shift our policy responses to intimate partner violence away from criminalization and instead look at the problem through the lenses of economics, public health, and community intervention.

More event information here