Justice Cafe Speaker Series

The Justice Cafe speaker series brings four individuals to campus in the 2021-2022 academic year to talk about important contemporary social justice topics. Topics to be discussed include mental health, restorative justice, reproductive rights, climate activism, and racial justice.

Leon Ford - Underwood Room, December 8 at 7pm

Leon Ford is a well-respected activist, mental health ambassador, and social advocate of change through his leadership. Through mentorship, he has sparked a movement cultivating leaders, organizers, and social entrepreneurs by empowering them to use their voices, platforms, and resources to evoke change and reshape their communities for generations to come. Leon Ford's work has not gone unnoticed in the community. He has received several awards, including but not limited to; President Obama’s Volunteer Service Award “2017, The Root 100 “2018” Pittsburgh’s 40 Under 40 “2019.” Ford will talk about mental health and restorative justice.

Aimee Arrambide - Zoom, March 23 at 7pm

Aimee was born and raised in San Antonio, Texas. She was inspired to go into reproductive health, rights, and justice by her father who was an abortion provider in central and south Texas. She studied Philosophy at the University of Texas and received her Juris Doctor from New York Law School. She co-wrote the Public Leadership Institute’s Playbook for Abortion Rights, serves on the board of Equality Texas, serves on the advisory council of ReproAction, and is a We Testify Storyteller. She was an intern at Avow in 2006 and 2007, the political affairs director in 2013 and 2014, and joined as the executive director in 2018. Arrambide will talk about reproductive rights.

Sophia Kianni - All School Meeting, April 15

Sophia Kianni is a 19-year-old Iranian-American climate activist. She is the founder and executive director of Climate Cardinals, an international nonprofit with 8,000 volunteers in 40+ countries working to translate climate information into 100+ languages. She also represents the United States as the youngest member on the inaugural United Nations Youth Advisory Group on Climate Change. She has been named VICE Media’s youngest Human of the Year, selected as Buzzfeed’s youngest Woman to Watch, and chosen for Energy News Network’s 40 under 40 list. Kianni will talk about climate activism.

Clint Smith - All School Meeting, May 13

Clint Smith is a staff writer at The Atlantic. He is the author of the narrative nonfiction book, How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning With the History of Slavery Across America, which was a #1 New York Times Bestseller, and the poetry collection Counting Descent, which won the 2017 Literary Award for Best Poetry Book from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association and was a finalist for an NAACP Image Award. His essays, poems, and scholarly writing have been published in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, The New Republic, Poetry Magazine, The Paris Review, the Harvard Educational Review and elsewhere. Smith will talk about racial justice.