Symposium
February 2nd
Trinity University
Chapman Auditorium, Chapman Center
This symposium is organized by a working group on academic and intellectual freedom in San Antonio. Participants of this working group include faculty from UTSA, Trinity University, Northeast Lakeview College, and Our Lady of the Lake University, University of the Incarnate Word. The primary contacts for this event are Dr. Miriam Sobre (UTSA: The Department of Communication) and Dr. Habiba Noor (Trinity University: Education and Urban Studies).
We encourage you to register for the symposium, but it is not required. Due to the delicate nature of these issues, we want to assure that your information will only be shared with the conference organizers to establish a headcount of attendees.
This symposium is designed to begin the complex process of demystifying academic and intellectual freedom in education. Over the last few years we have seen increasing calls to restrict education in Higher Ed and K-12. These restrictions have become encoded into law through legislation passed in Texas against DEI, CRT, LGBTQ+, and more recently have been reflected in university responses to campus culture wars (such as the Israel/Palestine conflict). All of these issues and more fit under the umbrella of this symposium. As legislation is both rooted in and reflects systems of power, this symposium gives us an opportunity to characterize the state of education in Texas and the US, and our roles as educators within that system. We are well aware that K12 and higher ed have cross-disciplinary impacts on social hierarchies and cultural identities, and are concerned that discrete movements around the nation that are working to dismantle progressive education policies and remove our ability to educate students about the realities of the social world. Therefore, we address this legislation that targets Academic Freedom (higher ed) and Intellectual Freedom (K12), through learning about the law (its goals, influences, history and antecedents of the current legislature, its context in Texas, etc.) demystifying the legal issues surrounding the legislation (our rights as educators, what will be being policed, etc.); hearing about the current chilling effects of such legislation (talking about book banning, sharing stories of the chilling effects of this legislation); and planning for the future (coalition-building, collaboration opportunities, classroom strategies, addressing the future of academic/intellectual freedom).
Parking will be available at Trinity outside the Chapman Center. Parking spots for the symposium will be reserved with orange cones. Additional parking can be found in the parking lots near lDicke Hall and Laurie Auditorium.
8:30 to 9:00 | Coffee and Symposium Welcome |
9:00 to 9:30 | Opening Session |
Welcome Address from Symposium Organizers Dr. Miriam Sobre University of Texas, San Antonio, Communication Dr. Habiba Noor Trinity University, Urban Studies & Education Education in an Era of Educational Intimidation Dr. Kyle Gillette Special Adviser to the Provost for Expression and Civil Discourse at Trinity University | |
9:30 to 10:30 | Setting the Stage: Laws and Rights |
Panel Moderator Dr. Sarah Beth Kaufman Trinity University, Sociology 1. Senate Bills 16, 17, and 18: A Tripartite Attack on Public Higher Education as an Incubator of Democracy Antonio L. Ingram II Assistant Counsel, Legal Defense Fund 2. Navigating the Rocky Shoals of SB17 and SB18 Dr. James “Jim” Klein Former President of the Texas AAUP, Del Mar College, History | |
10:30 to 10:45 | Comfort, Coffee and Connections |
10:45 to 11:30 | Restricting Texts |
Panel Moderator: Dr. Kathryn Vomero Santos Trinity University, English 1. The Shifting Terms and Techniques of Book Restriction in K-12 Schools Dr. Franklin Strong Texas Freedom to Read Project, KIPP Austin 2. Intellectual Freedom and Social Responsibility in Libraries Professor Alex Gallin-Parisi Trinity University Outreach & Engagement Librarian | |
11:30 to 12:30 | Break for Lunch |
12:30 to 1:30 | Power, Personhood, and Academic Freedom |
Panel Moderator: Dr. Mel Webb: University of Texas San Antonio, Philosophy and Literature Circles & Honors College 1. Educational Intimidation and Resistance within Ethnic Studies Dr. Valerie Martinez Our Lady of the Lake University, History 2. Ethnic Studies and the Limits of Academic Hospitality Dr. Aimee Villareal Texas State University, Anthropology 3. The Palestine Exception: Surveillance, Harassment, and Censorship in Academia Dr. Suraya Khan San Antonio College, History | |
1:30 to 2:15 | The Fallout: Responses to Educational Intimidation |
Discussion Facilitator: Dr. Ric Gonzalez University of the Incarnate Word, Director of Etting Center for Civic Leadership and Sustainability This session is for people to share stories about the chilling effects in K-12 and higher ed. Attendees will need to sign up to speak. Each participant will have 2 minutes to speak unless otherwise noted. Dr. Miriam Sobre will kick off the session by sharing preliminary findings from her work on these topics, and then will hand the mic around based on sign-up sheet. | |
2:15 to 2:30 | Comfort, Coffee and Connections |
2:30 to 3:30 | The Power of Transformative Pedagogies under the Shadow of State-Sanctioned attacks on Social Justice |
| 1. Dr. C. Alejandra Elenes University of Texas San Antonio Chair: Department of Race, Ethnicity, Gender and Sexuality Studies 2. Dr. Miriam Sobre Facilitates next steps |
Start Time: 3:45pm | Continuing the Conversation (optional) No-Host Coffee Session for Connection and Conversation Location: NoWhere Books: 5154 Broadway, San Antonio |
BIOSSYMPOSIUM ORGANIZERS Dr. Habiba Noor Dr. Habiba Noor is the Director of Urban Studies and a Lecturer in the Department of Education at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. Her courses include Urban Education, Schooling in America and Social Justice. Dr.Noor a has extensive experience in K-12 education as a former public middle school teacher in Oakland, CA and New York City and curriculum design. She is a co-author of the documentary theatre play To Be Honest: Voices on Donald Trump’s Muslim Ban, published in 2020. Dr. Noor's current research centers on teacher responses to laws that seek to regulate the teaching of race and sex in public school classrooms. Dr. Miriam Sobre Dr. Miriam Shoshana Sobre is an Assistant Professor of Intercultural Communication at the University of Texas at San Antonio, where she conducts research and teaches about critical intercultural communication pedagogy; language, culture and communication, Jewish American identity; and diversity, equity and inclusion. She is currently working on research on academic freedom as it pertains to DEI and the chilling effect of anti-DEI legislation on teachers and students in higher, noncompulsory education in San Antonio, Texas. She lives in San Antonio with her daughter, who is five and a half, and who she believes deserves an education that reflects diversity, equity and inclusion as she, like her mom, is neurodivergent. SPEAKERS Dr. Kyle Gillette Kyle Gillette is Special Adviser to the Provost for Expression and Civil Discourse at Trinity University Professor in the Department of Human Communication and Theatre and the His courses range from theatre history and dramatic literature seminars to performance laboratories where students reimagine ancient tragedy, explore modern realism or experiment with avant-garde manifestos. Kyle has written three books: The Invisible City (Routledge, 2020), Railway Travel in Modern Theatre (McFarland, 2014) and a slim volume on Thornton Wilder’s The Skin of Our Teeth (Routledge's Fourth Wall Series, 2016). Dr. Sarah Beth Kaufman Sarah Beth Kaufman is a sociologist and critical criminologist, interested broadly in knowledge, culture,politics, and art. Dr. Kaufman’s 2020 book, American Roulette: The Social Logic of Death Penalty Sentencing Trials with University of California Press, is the first systematic ethnography of death penalty trials in the United States. She also co-authored the documentary theatre project, To Be Honest: Voices on Islam from an American City. Antonio L. Ingram II Antonio Lavalle Ingram II serves as Assistant Counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. He is a graduate of Yale College and UC Berkeley School of Law. He previously served as a federal judicial law clerk for the honorable Ivan L. Lemelle in the Eastern District of Louisiana in New Orleans, Louisiana and for Chief Judge Roger L. Gregory for the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia. He also completed a Fulbright Public Policy Fellowship in Malawi where he worked for the Malawian government and served in their Anti-Corruption Bureau. Dr. James “Jim” Klein Jim Klein is a Professor of History at Del Mar College in Corpus Christi, Texas. Jim served as President of the Texas Association of College Teachers (TACT) 2021-2023. Prior to that, he served as President of the Del Mar College chapter of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), 2009-2019. Jim served as President of the Texas Conference of the AAUP, 2014-2020. He served on the National Council of the AAUP 2017-2018. Currently he serves on the national AAUP Community College Committee and on the AAUP Government Relations Committee. In these capacities, he has lobbied members of the Texas legislature and the U.S. Congress since 2011. Dr. Kathryn Vomero Santos Kathryn Vomero Santos specializes in early modern literature and culture, translation and interpreting studies, premodern critical race studies, and gender and sexuality studies. She earned her Ph.D. and M.A. in English and American Literature from New York University and her B.A. in English and Spanish from Syracuse University. Her cross-historical research explores the intersections of performance with the politics of language, empire, and racial formation in the early modern period and in our contemporary moment. Dr. Franklin Strong Franklin Strong is a co-founder and co-director of the Texas Freedom to Read Project. For the past two years, he has created and distributed resources for fighting school book bans and electing school board trustees who support academic freedom and inclusive classrooms. A classroom teacher with more than 20 years of experience, he also holds a PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of Texas at Austin. His writing on Latin American literature, African-American literature, and the literature of the Caribbean can be found at the Latin American Literary Review and the E3W Review of Books, among other places. Professor Alex Gallin-Parisi Alex Gallin-Parisi (Trinity University) is the Outreach & Engagement Librarian, Associate Professor, and liaison to Sociology/Anthropology, Political Science, Economics, Women & Gender Studies, and Urban Studies as well as the librarian for student affairs, athletics, and student organizations. AGP arrived at Trinity in 2011 and has over 18 years of professional experience working in academic libraries and museums. She publishes about gender, sexuality, motherhood and embodiment in the workplace, and information-seeking at times of personal change. AGP is studying to become a sexuality educator with a focus on sex ed for college students. She is currently reading Eyeliner: A Cultural History by Zahra Hankir. Dr. Mel Webb Mel Webb is a theological social ethicist whose work is broadly concerned with political, theological, and philosophical constructs of flourishing societies, and the diverse ways that members of those societies are expected and enabled to foster mutual well-being. They study Augustine and Augustinianisms, moral psychology, and pastoral responses to sexual and state violence. Mel has over a dozen years of teaching experience in prisons, seminaries, universities, and online classrooms and they pursue collaborative research opportunities with scholars across several different disciplines, including religious studies, political theory, cognitive psychology, sociology, and educational theory. At the University of Texas at San Antonio, Mel is a Research Associate & Lecturer in the Department of Philosophy and Classics and a Lecturer with the Honors College and the Center for Civic Engagement. Dr. Valerie Martinez Dr. Valerie A. Martínez specializes in 20th Century Mexican American history, U.S. Military and Labor History, and Women’s and Gender Studies. Her National Endowment for the Humanities-funded project, Embajadoras: Latina Servicewomen and Hemispheric Politics during World War II, reconceptualizes traditional notions of diplomacy and international actors by investigating how the recruitment and service of Latina women in the Benito Juárez Squadron during World War II embodied the Pan-American ideal of an imagined hemispheric system of unity and reciprocity in the Americas. Her transnational research in both Mexico and the US has been funded by several entities. She is also the co-recipient of an NEH grant to create an oral history project dedicated to women veterans, a core member of the Ethnic Studies Network of Texas, and the chair of the National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies Tejas-Foco pre-K – 12 Committee. Dr. Martínez is currently an Associate Professor of History and the First-Second Year Experience Coordinator at Our Lady of the Lake University in SanAntonio, Texas. Dr. Aimee Villareal Aimee M. Villarreal is an assistant professor of anthropology at Texas State University. As a Chicana with roots in New Mexico and Texas, she descends from farmworkers, faith healers, educators, and community workers whose collective spirit she brings to her teaching, scholarship, and documentary projects. Her interdisciplinary scholarship bridging history, anthropology, and ethnic studies, focuses on sanctuary movements and other radical acts of rebeldía for social justice and sustainable futures in the US-Mexico borderlands. Her forthcoming book with the University of North Carolina Press, Sanctuaryscapes in the New Mexico Borderlands: Movements and Revivals Across the Secular-Religious Divide (2024), tells time-traveling stories about how people band together in to create communities of protection and care in precarious times. Dr. Suraya Khan Suraya Khan is an Assistant Professor of History at San Antonio College. She received her Ph.D. in US and Middle Eastern history at Rice University in 2018. Her research investigates histories of activism for Palestine in the US and how the question of Palestine nurtured a spectrum of Arab American identities from the 1930s to the 1980s. By tracing Arab American, South Asian, and Black activism for Palestine on regional, national, and transnational scales, her work explores the intersections between politics and migrant identities. She is a co-advisor of the San Antonio College Gender and Sexuality Alliance, Heart of Yarn, and Students for Justice groups. Dr. C. Alejandra Elenes C. Alejandra Elenes is Professor and Chair of the Department of Race, Ethnicity, Gender and Sexuality Studies and PI of the Democratizing Racial Justice Mellon Foundation Grant at UTSA. Her interdisciplinary scholarship centers on the application of Anzalduan philosophy to examine Chicana feminist epistemologies, methodologies, spirituality, and social justice. Her current research projects are based on oral history, archival research, and testimonio. She is former co-lead editor of Chicana/Latina Studies. She is the author of Transforming Borders and co-editor of Chicana/Latina Education in Everyday Life (winner AESA book award). She has published in journals such as, Aztlán, Frontiers, Journal of Latinos in Education, QSE, Educational Theory and Journal of Latino/Latin American Studies. | |
Cultivate Consideration.
Foster thoughtful conversations with the following guidelines for a productive and respectful symposium.
Embrace Diversity:
Value a spectrum of opinions, backgrounds, and experiences to enrich the discourse.
Assume Positive Intent:
Extend the benefit of the doubt regarding others' intentions for a harmonious atmosphere.
Balance Actively:
Engage proactively while ensuring ample space for others to contribute meaningfully.
Utilize "I" Statements:
Articulate feelings responsibly using "I" statements to enhance personal accountability.
Uphold Confidentiality:
Commit to not disclosing names, personal experiences, or information beyond the symposium, respecting the privacy of participants.
[1] https://pen.org/report/educational-intimidation/#