As we are nearing a full year of COVID-19 in the United States, we turn our attention to educators and teachers everywhere who have been tasked with teaching during a pandemic. We recognize the labor and efforts of teachers who have had to adapt their lesson plans and strategies to virtual and distance learning models, as well as the burden on families who have struggled to provide childcare while working remotely or as essential workers in a pandemic. 

With the CDC rolling out new safety guidelines for in-person delivery of instruction in K-12 schools, many teachers statewide and nationwide now face a multitude of new challenges. How can we balance COVID safety and respecting the autonomy and choices of our frontline educators in a public health crisis, while also meeting the needs of students and families that have equally been burdened by the difficulties of remote learning and having sufficient technology access? 

We hold these pieces together and recognize that the pandemic has only deepened already-existing equity gaps in education, particularly when it comes to childcare, internet access, vaccinations, and support for both educators and families. It is clear that we need center the safety and the needs of frontline workers that includes frontline educators and families alike. With creativity and commitment, there are ways to do both. The vast number of public parks can be repurposed for smaller teaching pods with voluntary teachers and training of unemployed workers as aids for families needing that support. 

We are organizing the release of the Labor & Employment Committee and encourage participation from members who are working in the realms of Labor & Employment work. (If you are interested in learning more about the Labor & Employment Committee, please contact our program coordinator E, at econner@nlgsf.org.)

Already facing the injustice of being punished for surviving injustice, those incarcerated face specific threats during COVID. For queer, transgender and gender expansive people inside, the brutality is daily. Please join MeTooBehindBars, a coalition of organizations demanding an end to gender-based violence in prisons, in taking action to free Brandy Scott, a Black trans woman and criminalized survivor of domestic violence. (See action below.)

—The NLG-SF Bay Area Team

In honor of #TransLiberation and #WomensHistoryMonth, please join Survived & Punished and TGI Justice Project in supporting Brandy Scott's freedom.

Brandy Scott is a Black trans woman and criminalized survivor of domestic violence. She has already served her base term, but is still in prison due to a gun enhancement. Like thousands of incarcerated trans and gender-nonconforming survivors, Brandy faces consistent and targeted transphobic violence by prison guards. Brandy hopes to hire an attorney with the funds collected in order to access pathways to release. Funds will also support her with commissary and reentry. We are currently halfway to meeting Brandy’s target goal of $5000; together, we can reach that goal before the end of March.

Take Action:

• Contribute to and/or share Brandy's Legal Defense + Survival Fund with your networks or on social media: bit.ly/BrandySurvivalFund
  
  
• Sign and share the petition urging Governor Newsom to grant commutation to incarcerated survivor, Brandy Scott.

Part One: Submissions 

Date: March 18, 2021 
Time: 6pm-8pm 

Join us for this CLE event where we will learn more about California Public Records Act as well as strategy and exceptions for submitting requests to support movement work. 

Please register at the link below.

The National Lawyers Guild of San Francisco Bay Area is seeking law student interns and work study placements for the remainder of Spring 2021 and Summer 2021 semester. Internships range from 5-35 hours per week. Contact Program Coordinator E Conner, at econner@nlgsf.org, if you are interested.

In your internship you will have the opportunity to work closely with attorneys and other legal professionals; develop writing samples; be exposed to a diverse range of legal workers, organizations, and law firms; gain hands on experience in the legal field; have access to professional development and political education; and develop an orientation to progressive movement lawyering.

We can offer:

• Pro bono hours (as per State Bar requirements)
  
• Credit-earning internships and externships
  
• Federally funded work-study

You can find more information about our internship program below.

Deadline: March 19, 2021

Feinberg, Jackson, Worthman & Wasow, a Berkeley-based firm, is looking to hire a recent law school grad for a one-year fellowship position starting this September. Fellows are involved in all aspects of the firm’s work, which includes workers’ and civil rights litigation, as well as legal support for unions and their allies on innovative campaigns. More information is available at the link below. 

The NLG National Office, in collaboration with NLG Review, is publishing a 4-part blog series exploring questions around policing in the United States. Guild members shared pieces analyzing the policing of social movements, the role of police in maintaining current power dynamics, and alternatives to policing from community power to defunding to abolition. The goal of this series is to generate discussion and conversation among our members and the public regarding the current state of policing and to envision new strategies of social organization. Please also read the Guild’s recent resolution supporting the abolition of policing passed by the membership in 2020. 

In the final piece of the series, NLG Anti-Racism Committee Co-Chair and one of the proponents of the 2020 policing resolution Kira Kelley makes the case for the abolition of policing and offers examples of individuals and projects taking power and resources away from police and prisons to create non-carceral, non-punitive alternatives.

Content warning for police violence, sexual assault, drugs & addiction, and gun deaths.

The blog posting is available in full at the link below.

The Environmental Justice (EJ) committee of the NLG-SFBA launched in February 2021. The EJ committee seeks to support the organizing of frontline communities in the Bay Area most impacted by poor environmental conditions and to fortify their efforts by providing legal defense and support including impact litigation, activist defense, legislative analysis, submission of public records acts and consultation based on needs of the EJ movement. The EJ committee also seeks to be a political home for EJ minded lawyers and legal workers. 

The next EJ Committee meeting is Friday, March 5th, 5-6pm.

You can join us on Zoom at the link provided below.

If you’re interested in getting involved in the EJ Committee, please contact Zsea at zsea@nlgsf.org. 

While the media rightly reports on the movements against dictatorship in Hong Kong, Thailand and Myanmar, little is being said about the movement in Haiti and the people who are losing their lives trying to get rid of the murderous dictatorship of Jovenel Moise and his death squads. Haiti Action Committee, with whom the Global Women’s Strike and Women of Color/GWS work closely, has issued the action alert below, calling on people in the US to object to President Biden’s backing and financing Jovenel Moise.

Solidarity with the People of Haiti! End US and UN support of Haitian dictator Jovenel Moise

Please E-mail and tweet the demands below to the following officials and to your Congressional Representative and Senators:

• End all support for the dictatorship of Jovenel Moise
• End all recognition of the government of Jovenel Moise as of February 7th, 2021 as required by Haiti's constitution
• Stop all funding of the criminal Haitian police and security forces

US Representative Gregory W. Meeks, Senior Member, House Foreign Relations Committee: tweet @RepGregoryMeeks; email meeks.house.gov/contact

President Joe Biden: tweet @POTUS; email whitehouse.gov/contact

Haiti Action Committee strongly condemns the continued US and UN support for Haitian dictator Jovenel Moise as he flaunts the Haitian constitution and clings to power. Moise has been ruling by decree for months, and is now pushing to enact illegitimate constitutional reforms that would give him even more power. Having come to power through a US-UN supported fraudulent election, denounced widely in Haiti as an “electoral coup,” the Moise regime is now poised to stage another series of phony elections to maintain its stranglehold over the country. We stand in solidarity with the resistance and resolve of Haitians in and outside of Haiti to get rid of this criminal regime. 

Enough is enough.

We must demand that the new Biden Administration end US support for dictatorship and terror in Haiti.

Please join us in sending this message loud and clear.

Gabriela Solano is an incarcerated immigrant and survivor of domestic violence who served over 20 years for actions of her abusive boyfriend and his acquaintances. But on her first day of freedom, she may be transferred to ICE detention unless Governor Newsom intervenes: Gabby is at risk for deportation to Mexico, a country she left as a baby, and the dangerous conditions in ICE detention during the COVID pandemic. 

Take these actions in support of the fight for Gabby’s freedom:

• Sign the petition to demand Gov. Newsom stop the ICE transfer.
  
• Call and email Gov. Newsom to demand for Gabby’s release.
  
• Join the Tweetstorm to share Gabby’s story & pressure officials to free Gabby Solano.
  
• Use this toolkit to learn more about Gabby’s case and how to demand for her release.

San Francisco Bay View National Black Newspaper Editor Malik Washington is being severely retaliated against for releasing a public memo documenting a preventable COVID-19 outbreak at 111 Taylor, a reentry facility run by the $2B+ for-profit prison corporation GEO Group in San Francisco's Tenderloin District. The Bureau of Prisons is now threatening to send him back to prison and Malik Washington and the SF Bay View have filed suit against the BOP and GEO.

This Sunday, March 7th from 12pm-2pm there will be a rally held at 111 Taylor St. San Francisco, CA in support of Malik Washington’s release of Black journalism, and of shutting down the Geo Group facility once and for all.

If you are not able to attend the rally, here are other ways to support:

• Donate to their legal action fundraiser.
  
• Virtually attend Malik’s court hearing on Wednesday, March 10th at 2pm.
  
• Watch and share the short documentary exposé on the atrocious, dehumanizing conditions at 111 Taylor St., put forth by SF Public Defender's The Adachi Project.

For more information and updates on this campaign, go to linktr.ee/FreeMalik.

After being found suitable for parole, Tien Pham was transferred to Aurora ICE detention facility during a global pandemic and separated thousands of miles from his family. Tien Pham is a refugee from Vietnam. He spent years in a refugee camp and resettled into San Jose, CA after fleeing his war-torn country. When immigrants and refugees like Tien are transferred over to ICE, many do not receive adequate support and resources to fight their case. 

While in ICE, Tien has been transferred across multiple states and left in a cruel limbo as he faces imminent deportation. Tien had to undergo a rigorous process to earn his freedom in which the Board of Parole Hearings and Gavin Newsom affirmed he should be released early. Please make calls to ICE now and demand that Tien is released and no longer a risk to public safety.

Call scripts & more info at the link below.

Date: Saturday, March 6th
Time: 3PM PST / 6PM EST

A forum of migrant people in diverse situations and transmitting live from various border cities. All are seeking asylum in the US and are stuck waiting in Mexico. All demand respect for the right to seek asylum. 

The forum will be livestreamed in Spanish via the Facebook pages of the following organizations: Espacio Migrante, Pueblo Sin Fronteras, AFSC Latinoamérica y el Caribe, Innovation Law Lab, Kino Border Initiative, Rainbow Bridge Asylum Seekers, Centro 32, Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center, Haitian Bridge Alliance.

Date: March 8, 2021.
Time: 12 pm Noon EST (9 am Pacific)

In conjunction with International Women's Day on March 8th, this webinar will highlight lessons from the global movement for women's rights and dismantling patriarchy and state repression, and provide a forum for strategizing on future actions to strengthen the movement.  This is part of the Project South quarterly "Connecting Local to Global Struggles" webinar series. Recording and resources will be shared after the webinar.

Speakers:

• Carla Garcia: Organizer with Garifuna Rights Movement, Honduras
• Mabrouka Mbarek: Former Member of the Tunisian National Constituent Assembly; Co-Editor of Review of African Political Economy
• Sahar Francis: General Director of Palestine-based Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association
• Hanifah Shoatz-Bey: Reproductive Justice Organizer and Operations Director at Project South (Atlanta, GA)

Date: March 25, 2021
Time: 12:30-1:30PM

The Bay Area Consortium on Externships (BACE) and Southern California Externships (SoCalEx) invite you to a free one-hour CLE program on March 25, at 12:30-1:30pm, for attorneys who supervise students in field placements. 

BACE and SoCalEx have identified diversity and inclusion as a critical issue and chose the Inclusion Design Group (IDG) for its expertise in training on these topics. Dr. Erin Conner, IDG’s co-founder, will deliver a keynote to deepen our awareness and understanding about power and privilege and social identity, and how to identify and remove obstacles that keep law students and lawyers from reaching their full potential. Attendees will receive written materials designed to help them identify issues and implement solutions at their organizations. 

We hope to see you there!