Death Penalty on Trial at March Forum
The death penalty and the U.S. justice system will be on trial at the University of San Francisco in March, as the Archdiocese of San Francisco and the Freedom Alliance of Culturally Empowered Students (FACES) co-sponsor with USF separate forums designed to raise awareness and understanding of what they consider patterns of injustice.
“A Catholic Understanding of the Death Penalty: Communicating Catholic Social Teaching to a Skeptical Community,” is the topic of the 5th Annual Archbishop Quinn Colloquium on Catholic Social Teaching. Elisabeth Semel, director of the American Bar Association’s Death Penalty Representation Project, will be among the keynote speakers for the March 3 symposium in the McLaren Complex.
FACES has tapped the perspectives of activists Angela Davis and Luis “Bato” Talamantez to lead a two-day conference on “Crime and Punishment: The Price We All Pay.”
Following a day-long series of workshops, Davis will speak at 7 p.m. March 2. After a similar format of workshops on March 3, Talamantez, co-founder of California Prison Focus, will deliver a keynote at 5 p.m.
“This discussion of the death penalty is important in light of the recent national discussion of the role of faith-based organizations in the settting of public policy around the nation,” said Eugene Muscat, senior associate dean in the School of Business and Management and one of the coordinators of the forum. “USF has an important role to convene community leaders for conversations about topics such as the death penalty.”
Semel will offer a legal perspective on the death penalty. James Megivern of the University of North Carolina at Wilmington will present a theological perspective and Gregory Boyle, S.J., director of Jobs for a Future and Homeboy Industries, will provide a pastoral perspective.
Angela Davis makes a return to campus at the request of students associated with FACES, a campus organization that works toward a more inclusive, multicultural university and society through socio/cultural, educational, and political activities. “Crime and Punishment” is the 2001 theme of an annual event called “Visualize and Vocalize.
“We want to create awareness about political prisoners nationally and internationally,” said FACES member Asa Butler. “We also want to motivate students to become more involved with different political issues within society.”
In workshops led by USF faculty and students and community activists, the following topics will be discussed: dismantling the prison industry; women in the prison system; lessons from the death penalty; political prisoners of Latin America; Proposition 21: the war on America’s youth; brutality in the U.S. justice system; economic and political justice in Haiti; social economic justice along the border; and the injustice surrounding the justice system.
Among the presenters are politics professors James Taylor and Ange-Marie Hancock, students Genivieve Smith and Sherie Gilmore, and representatives from the California Coalition for Women Prisoners, the Prison Activist Resource Center, and Amnesty International.
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