On February 7th, 2008 our office was lucky enough to participate in the 22nd annual "Human Rights Awareness Conference."  The Nassau County Commission on Human Rights sponsors this event every year, with co-sponsorship from us here at the NYCLU Nassau as well as the Nassau County Police Department, the District Attorney's office, BOCES, and Nassau County Educators.

The Conference attracted over 300 high school students from districts all over Nassau County.  Participants spent the morning attending three different workshops, each of which focused on a different area of human rights, discrimination and civic responsibility.  This year the six workshops were: Increase the Peace: Breaking the Cycle; Voting Vibes: You've Got the Power! Hate Crimes 101; Exploring Hip Hop; The Teen Scene: Issues and Attitudes.  

Our workshop was "Speak Up, Speak Out! Your Rights in School and the Community."   Executive Director Tara Keenan-Thomson and Assistant Case Worker Melissa Scannell ran the workshop with the help of four outstanding students from Schreiber High School.  These students, pictured here talking to their groups, were highly influential in getting an unconstitutional curfew overturned in their town of Port Washington (see link here for New York Times coverage of their case).  They shared their story and discussed tools and techniques to interact with authorities and make change happen.   The workshop also focused on interactions with police and what your rights are in those situations.

In the afternoon, participants were encouraged to "mix it up" with students from other schools and were assigned to eat lunch with people they didn't  know.  After lunch, the tables filled out worksheets that focused on cliques, stereotypes, cultural assumptions and how we can work together to overcome the social obstacles imposed by these forms of discrimination.  All of the students thoroughly enjoyed this portion of the day, speaking out to the entire group to engage in a dialogue about how to work together.