Caribbean American Lawyers Association to co-sponsor CLE on voter suppression

September 1, 2020 Rob Abruzzese

A box of absentee ballots waited to be counted at the Albany County Board of Elections on June 30. Photo: Hans Pennink/AP File

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The Caribbean American Lawyers Association is hosting its first public meeting on Sept. 15 when it co-sponsors a continuing legal education (CLE) seminar with the Brooklyn Bar Association on voter suppression.

The two-hour CLE, entitled “Voter Suppression: Past, Present, and Future,” will start at 6 p.m. and will be hosted by Caribbean American Lawyers Association President Justice Sylvia Hinds-Radix, from the Appellate Division, Second Department, and Vice President Yvette Hinds-Wills. Co-hosting are the BBA’s Civil Rights Committee co-chairs, Dewey Golkin and Jonathan Stead, as well as the Employment and Labor Committee Co-Chairs, Justice Katherine Levine and Rachel Gold.

Prof. Alexander Keyssar, a professor from Harvard University; Steven Cohn, and Martin Connor are also expected to take part in the CLE.

Organizers explained that they felt it was necessary to host this CLE leading up to November’s election.

“The year is 2020 and the world has been presented with a political, social, financial, and health crisis,” said a statement written by the CLE’s organizers. “It is a year that has also brought serious issues of police brutality to the forefront of the national conversation.

“Amidst all these crises and unemployment rates not seen since 1929, we also face a pandemic that jeopardizes our health and that of our families. At one of the most trying times in U.S. history, our constitutional right to vote has been challenged. The right to vote is the right to be heard. What happens if it is silenced?”