|
|
|
|
|
|
Samantha Godwin
Bio Statement
I am a dual-degree graduate student in political/ethical philosophy, and a final year law school student normally based in Washington DC. I have over six years of campaigning experience in the anti-war movement and student’s rights movement.
As an undergraduate I helped organize for the Stop the War Coalition and co-founded an ethical investment campaign against armament investment. I was elected General Secretary of my university’s student’s union (University College London Union) and chaired the Union’s executive committee, governing body and general meetings – representing over 21,000 students. From this position, I successfully implemented a high profile ban on military recruitment on campus and traveled to other universities to build the counter-recruitment movement.
At Georgetown University Law Center, I reestablished the National Lawyers Guild chapter. The NLG is America’s leading human rights bar association, comprised of activist lawyers, law students and legal workers. As the NLG chapter president I organized many speakers meetings, a legal observer training and three major conferences.
Almost two years ago I was elected to serve on the NLG’s national board of directors as the Student National Vice President. I also drafted and successfully passed a new progressive NLG policy on law students and legal education.
I recently published an article, Children’s Rights, Oppression and Liberation in the Northwestern Interdisciplinary Law Review (available on SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1803459). This article offers a legal and philosophical argument for equal rights for all ages and the abolition of minor status.
Examples of articles featuring my past activist work:
http://www.socialist.net/student-power-right-wing-manoeuvres-defeated-by-left.htm
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1581106/Students-vote-to-ban-military-from-campus.html
|  |
Questionnaire
1. Why do you want to run for the NYRA Board of Directors?
I want to serve on the board of directors because, as I hope it will become clear from my answers below, I have a clear vision for what NYRA’s short and long term goals ought to be, and a strong commitment to achieving those goals. The status of children and young people is vitally important to me, and I think I have the ideas and experience necessary to build NYRA into a truly meaningful political movement for youth rights. I am also running for the board because I am frustrated in some ways that I am not better positioned to do more to push NYRA forward and I believe being on the board will better equip me to ensure that NYRA lives up to its true potential and gives youth the advocacy organization they deserve.
2. Are you familiar with the responsibilities of a non-profit board member? What prior experience do you have that you believe qualifies you to hold the position of director on our board?
As a current member of the board of directors of the National Lawyers Guild and a past board chair of a large charity (University College London Union), I have nearly three years cumulative experience serving as a non-profit board member. Fundraising and recruitment are a central part of a board member’s fiduciary duty to their organization and I have significant experience doing both on behalf of the NLG. A board also needs to be able to provide a strategic plan to define an organization’s goals and determine how to meet them. I believe that my activist and campaigning experience will help me plan how to best meet NYRA’s goals. By contributing to the legal and political justification for youth rights (as I believe I did in my article Children’s Oppression, Rights and Liberation) I hope to be able to help to define those goals.
3. What have you personally done to advance NYRA?
Since I’ve been out of the country for most of the time in which I’ve been a NYRA member, I have not had an opportunity to contribute to chapter development directly. Instead I have been very active on the NYRA forums (My username on the forums is SG1). I have consistently attended the online NYRA board meetings, chapter meetings and informal webchats. This type of involvement has allowed me to contribute ideas for NYRA’s activist work. Using these forums I’ve tried to help clarify what I see as the right direction for NYRA’s work.
4. What are your short and long term goals for NYRA? How do we reach those goals?
In the very long term, NYRA’s goal should be to spearhead a civil rights movement that will transform the basic nature of how adults and youth interact from the current relationship of domination and subjugation, to one of equal respect, equal standing and equal rights. Youth need a paradigm shifting social revolutionary change parallel to the slavery abolition movement, the Black civil rights movement, or the women’s liberation movement, to achieve equal civil and human rights, including the abolition of the voting age and the legal disabilities of minor status.
In the short term, NYRA should move away from reacting to relatively insignificant local single-issue controversies, to broader consciousness and awareness generating activities guided by a radical vision for youth liberation. To this end, NYRA should build consciousness raising groups across the country and find ways (publicity stunts etc.) to make extensive youth rights part of the national political awareness.
5. What do you believe is NYRA's biggest challenge or weakness, and what will you do, personally, to help address it. Please be specific and realistic.
(1) NYRA lacks a well defined vision of the full extent of youth rights. For example, NYRA’s Resolution 00-L limits NYRA to advocating for people in their teens and twenties, excluding younger children – this is discriminatory, ageist, and wrong. Likewise, NYRA’s failure to explicitly problematize the domination of children by their parents/guardians is a failure to recognize the primary nexus of youth oppression. (2) NYRA is too small, poorly funded and understaffed to lead a paradigm changing youth rights movement. (3) NYRA has been unable to make youth rights a matter of significant public controversy and debate – it lacks traction in any political discourse.
To resolve these three challenges, I will campaign to amend Resolution 00-L to include children of all ages and to adopt a more robust position on youth rights in the family, and I will push for expanded membership participation in fundraising, media and activist networking.
6. If elected, what will you personally do for the national organization? What projects or activities will you take leadership of? Please be specific and realistic.
I believe that when an organization is accessible and transparent and responsive to its members, its members gain a greater sense of ownership and strengthen their commitment. To this end, if elected I would lead a review of NYRA’s governance structure to expand member participation (and increase clarity). In particular I am interested in introducing a ‘plenary session’ where members can propose and debate new policy at the annual meeting, subject to a confirmation vote by the membership as a whole. Proposals would be circulated well in advance, and those not attending would be able to submit audio speeches for or against.
I believe NYRA ought to engage with other progressive movements, including civil rights lawyers, feminists, left-libertarians, progressive educators, and others. I outlined this plan on the forums in more detail here (my username is SG1):
http://forums.youthrights.org/showthread.php?22138-Strategy-for-Building-the-Youth-Rigths-Movement
If elected I would try to organize those outreach efforts.
7. In your view, how is the role of a board member different than that of an active member or chapter leader? How would your involvement be affected if you weren't elected this year?
Being a board member requires taking responsibility for the whole organization – its finances and staff, its public positions, its growth and development, and its program for activism. While many members influence the organization, board members must assume a role of leadership and ultimate responsibility for NYRA, ensuing that the necessary work is completed. Many members not serving on the board are very committed to NYRA, but being on the board means additionally that one has an obligation to making sure NYRA works on a national level.
If I am not elected to the board, I will continue to be very active in NYRA, I will recruit for and participate in the local chapter when in DC, and I will still try to shape NYRA’s political vision. However I will not be in the best position to take responsibility for national projects that I think are important for NYRA’s future.
8. If you served on the board last year, how would you assess your level of involvement? Did you follow through on promises you made during last year's election?
I have not served on the NYRA board before. Despite this I was involved with the board and attended open board meetings and discussed the board’s business with its members.
9. Define "youth rights". Describe our mission and our vision in your own words.
Minors lack basic civil rights like voting, and lack even the basic human rights. Minor’s have no right to bodily integrity or freedom from arbitrary punishment, since parents (and in some states teachers) have a legal privilege assault and batter them and to confine them against their will. Minors are generally not free to live their own lives, pursue their own aspirations or maintain a private life, because the state grants parents and guardians domination over them.
Parental power to dictate a minor’s domicile, daily activities, travel, to violate their privacy, and punish them for resisting, demeans young people’s humanity.
Youth rights begin with a demand for human dignity and self-ownership. This entails abolishing parental powers over children and the legal status of minors. Ultimately youth should have equal civil rights and voting rights – all other rights should be granted on the basis of capability, not age.
10. With many qualified members running for the Board, what sets you apart? Why should you be elected?
I am not prepared to compromise egalitarian principles or to adopt soft-ageist positions for the sake of easing friendly engagement with the ageist power structure. I believe instead that an open and challenging political approach is ultimately needed to shake the foundations of people’s ageist assumptions and beliefs. The goal should not be to win everyone a few inches towards youth rights while leaving their ageism undisturbed, but to make people consider the full scope of youth rights first, so when the movement achieves critical momentum we can win people over completely: first the radicals/progressives, then the liberals, and finally the center. This is the approach of every previously successful civil rights movement.
I also have unique experience as a campaigner and in leadership positions of large organizations. Finally I think my legal and political background will help me be an asset to the organization on the board.
Back to the Election Page
|
|
