Dr. Aletha Harven, Assistant Professor of Psychology, and Dr. Sriram Chintakrindi, Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice, hosted the second day of their week long “Students: Know Your Rights!” Conference yesterday. 
Tuesday’s conference was focused on civil rights, featuring a presentation by Gladys Williams, the President of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People’s (NAACP) Modesto Branch. Williams answered questions from students in the audience and spoke to them about their civil rights. 
The conference started out with Dr. Chintakrindi and Dr. Harven going around the room and asking everyone what they and their partner thought civil rights was, eventually giving their own answers too. “Protecting everyone’s rights and really educating people about their rights” was their goal, Dr. Chintakrindi said. 
Before Williams came out to speak, Dr. Chintakrindi gave a brief overview as to what civil rights are. “The only way to protect civil rights is to keep that torch lit and have that conversation over and over again,” he said in regards to teaching civil right’s lessons repeatedly in classes. 
Williams then sat down and gave anecdotes of her life as a young activist while also letting the younger generation in the room know what some of their actual civil rights are. 
“Civil rights encompasses education, employment, housing, pubic accommodation, disabilities and legal protection of people,” Williams said. 
Some of the civil rights Williams explained were rights for veterans, for people with disabilities, the right to not be discriminated against based on age, rights for people of color and rights for a person’s sexual orientation and gender.
“Today it [civil rights] is used to describe the advancement of equity for all people regardless of their age, religion, their disabilities, their national origin or any certain characteristics that may prevent someone from having their rights,” Williams said. 
Williams was urging students to be cognizant of our rights because it does happen today where people will try and take away those rights. 
Some of the acts that have been gained and are now in place because of the civil rights movement that Williams touched on were the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Age Discrimination Act of 1975, the Employment Act of 1946 and the Fair Housing Policy Act of 1968.
Even though the acts are in place, Williams added that people are still voting on ways to make the laws stricter, referring to Proposition 10 that Californians voted on yesterday.
Williams urged the younger generation to get out and protest and stand up for their rights. “When I was a young girl, we did a lot of protesting and we were out there beating that drum,” she said, “It’s important for you as young people to stand up for not just your civil liberties but the civil liberties of the children to come in the future, those too young to have a voice yet and those that are too old to be able to get out there.” 
“It is you who is going to keep things vital in the United States and keep this a free democracy country. This country was based on democracy and that is why we have all these civil liberties,” Williams said.
Williams encouraged students to create an NAACP branch here at Stan State’s campus. 25 students wanted to participate.  
Dr. Harven said they put the conference on because she felt that students don’t really know what is going on with their rights, and she felt it is important for students to know what exactly their rights are on campus. And not just student rights but all rights that pertain to everybody. She wanted to help empower the students here on campus. 
“I don’t want students to be silent. I don’t want anyone to be silent,” Dr. Harven said. She added that she wants students to know that it is okay for them to speak up and to voice their opinions when they feel there is some sort of injustice going on.
Wednesday’s session will be on “Due Process Rights and Student Rights” from 2-3:15 pm. Thursday’s session will be on “LGBTQ+ Rights” from 12:30-1:45 pm and Friday’s conference will be on “Immigration Rights” from 2-4 pm.
All of the conference sessions will be held in the Diversity Center room L201. For more information on the conference, go here.