The School of Law and the George Warren Brown School of Social Work will host the fifth annual Access to Equal Justice Conference, “Poverty, Wealth and the Working Poor: Clinical and Interdisciplinary Perspectives,” from 8:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. April 1 in the Bryan Cave Moot Courtroom of Anheuser-Busch Hall.
The conference will explore the many barriers to economic prosperity and well-being for America’s working poor. Particular emphasis will be given to the interplay of race, gender, wealth and power in regards to employment, welfare, housing, health care, education and the environment.
Co-sponsored by the WUSTL law school’s Clinical Education Program, the Center for Interdisciplinary Studies and the Journal of Law and Policy, the conference is designed for academics and practitioners in multiple disciplines, including law, social work, political science, psychology, education, economics and business.
William P. Quigley, the Janet Riley Distinguished Professor of Law at Loyola University in New Orleans and author of Ending Poverty as We Know It: Guaranteeing a Right to a Job at a Living Wage, will present the keynote address at 9 a.m.
Other featured speakers are:
• Mark R. Rank, Ph.D., the Herbert S. Hadley Professor of Social Welfare at the WUSTL School of Social Work and author of One Nation Underprivileged: Why American Poverty Affects Us All;
• Laura Lein, Ph.D., professor of social work and of anthropology at the University of Texas and co-author of Making Ends Meet: How Single Mothers Survive Welfare and Low Wage Work;
• Thomas M. Shapiro, Ph.D., the Pokross Professor of Law and Social Policy at the Brandeis University Heller School for Social Policy and Management and author of The Hidden Cost of Being African American: How Wealth Perpetuates Inequality; and
• Sheila R. Foster, professor of law and co-director of the Stein Center at the Fordham School of Law, and Luke W. Cole, director of the Center on Race, Poverty and the Environment in San Francisco. Foster and Cole are co-authors of From the Ground Up: Environmental Racism and the Rise of the Environmental Justice Movement.
The conference is free and open to the public; however, attendees must pre-register.
For more information, call Shelly Nelson, clinical program coordinator at the School of Law, at 935-6419.
Registration and a conference agenda are available online at law.wustl.edu/clinics/conferences/interdisciplinaryconf/2005/agenda.html.