Legal Panel on Racial Discrimination within the LGBT Community

Legal Experts from the National Center for Lesbian Rights, ACLU
Set to Discuss Discrimination Issues at the LGBT Community Center

Kate Kendall


On Tuesday, June 7, Kate Kendell, Executive Director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, Jory Steele, Staff Attorney with the ACLU of Northern California, and others will address questions stemming from the City’s finding, released in April, that Les Natali, the owner of a popular bay bar, has for several years been discriminating against African Americans in patronage and employment:

• What is discrimination? What (if anything) is notable about the Badlands process and finding in particular?
o How does the case mirror other discussions (e.g., police racial profiling) about modern day discrimination?
• What are the best means to: prevent discrimination in the first place? To remedy discrimination once it has occurred? To penalize those who have engaged in discrimination?

Who:
Kate Kendell is the Executive Director of the National Center of Lesbian Rights, a legal center committed to creating a world in which all lesbians live freely, without fear of discrimination. Ms. Kendell has done hundreds of interviews with dozens of print, electronic and web media, including the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Wall Street Journal, US News and World Report, The Advocate, Crossfire, 20/20, National Public Radio, Salon and many others.

Jory Steele is as a staff attorney at the ACLU, where she works on a variety of issues, including post 9/11 litigation. Previously, Ms. Steele served as an extern for the Honorable Jack B. Weinstein in the NY Federal District Court and has received several international fellowships, including a 1993 Fulbright Fellowship in South Africa, where she studied the effects of apartheid on higher education. Ms. Steele is a graduate of Columbia Law School and holds a Masters degree in International and Public Affairs from Columbia University.

What: Panel discussion of civil rights and discrimination issues stemming from a City finding that a local bar owner has engaged in a pattern of “retail discrimination”

Where: The SF LGBT Community Center, 1800 Market Street, Room TBA

When: Tuesday, June 7, 2005 from 7-8:30PM
For more information, please call 415.865.5642