The Anticolonial Movement Lawyering Panel will bring together experienced lawyers who have dedicated their careers to working alongside social movements and marginalized communities to dismantle systems of oppression and resist colonial power structures. This panel will examine the legacy of colonialism, modern-day resistance movements, and the importance of building solidarity across social movements. Panelists will explore the role of lawyers in decolonization efforts and the opportunities to support activists, grassroots organizers, and communities in their ongoing struggles for liberation.
Speakers
Nadia Ben-Youssef
Nadia Ben-Youssef (she/her) is the granddaughter of artists, refugees, and revolutionaries. A human rights lawyer by training, Nadia currently serves as the Advocacy Director at the Center for Constitutional Rights, a legal and advocacy organization working with social movements and communities under threat to dismantle racism, cisheteropatriarchy, economic oppression and abusive state practices. She has expertise in international human rights fora and mechanisms, and extensive experience developing advocacy strategies to influence U.S. decision-makers. Her work often centers at the intersection of art and advocacy, and she curates exhibits and artistic programming that document key human rights concerns, celebrate social movements, and allow creatives the space to chart the future. Central to Nadia’s lifework is a commitment to the liberation of Palestine, and she is a proud co-founder of the Adalah Justice Project. Nadia is a member of the NY State bar, and serves on the Boards of Adalah Justice Project, the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti, and Multitude Films. Together with her family, Nadia is currently documenting the life and vision of her grandfather Salah Ben Youssef, a Third World revolutionary and freedom fighter of Tunisia’s independence movement who was assassinated in 1961.
Meena Jagannath
Meena Jagannath is a movement lawyer with an extensive background in activism and international human rights. She presently serves as Director of Global Programs at Movement Law Lab, where she coordinates the Global Network of Movement Lawyers, inspired by the idea that global crises require global solutions. She led the Network in multiple significant projects, including a multi-jurisdictional effort to achieve equitable access to COVID-19 healthcare products at the global level, as well as efforts to combat rising authoritarianism and genocide. Prior to running the Network, Meena co-founded the Community Justice Project in Miami, where she worked for a decade with social movements for racial justice and human rights along a number of axes, including housing, workers’ rights and police accountability. She deeply believes in multidisciplinarity and is passionate about forging bonds of solidarity across borders, languages, cultures and species.
Radhika Sainath
Radhika Sainath is a senior staff attorney at Palestine Legal, where she oversees the organization’s case work. She has advised hundreds of students, professors and activists on matters relating to free speech, censorship, anti-Palestinian discrimination, and academic freedom. She has litigated several cases involving the rights of Students for Justice in Palestine to organize on college campuses and filed what is believed to be the first complaint with the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights alleging a hostile anti-Palestinian environment in violation of Title VI. Prior to joining Palestine Legal, Radhika worked at Hadsell Stormer, one of Southern California’s most prestigious civil rights firms. She is a former union organizer with UNITE (now UNITE HERE). From 2002-2003 and in 2011, Radhika lived in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, where she worked with the International Solidarity Movement, a Palestinian-led nonviolent resistance movement. Radhika’s writing has appeared in Boston Review, The Nation, Lit Hub and Jacobin magazine. She is a frequent commentator in media outlets including the New York Times, Politico, Vox, Fashionista, The Washington Post, MSNBC, Al Jazeera Faultlines, NPR, Democracy Now, 5-4 and more. She has spoken to thousands of students across the country about their First Amendment rights and the Palestine exception to free speech. Radhika is a graduate of the University of California Berkeley School of Law, where she was a proud member of Law Students for Justice in Palestine. She is based in Palestine Legal’s New York City office and is admitted to the California and New York state bars.
Moderator: Laith Aqel
Laith Aqel (he /هو) is a Clinical Lecturer in Law and the Cover-Lowenstein Fellow at Yale Law School’s Schell Center for International Human Rights. His work confronts state repression under national security pretext, exposes the abuse of anti-terrorism laws, and defends movement organizers under attack. He has supported Palestinian resistance to displacement and dispossession and fought against U.S. racist immigration systems, military detention, and complicity in genocide and crimes against humanity. Previously, Laith was a Bernstein fellow at Adalah based in Haifa. At Yale, his focus lies at the intersection of human rights, liberation, and material decolonization.