Initiative to End Family Violence Delivers Powerful Fall Lecture Series
The Initiative to End Family Violence (IEFV) welcomed Connie Burk to UCI Law on Oct. 29 as part of its fall series, "Critical Perspectives on Domestic Violence and the Justice System."
It is the third program the IEFV held in October, Domestic Violence Awareness Month. On Oct. 3, Marissa Alexander (below, right), a domestic violence survivor sentenced to 20 years in prison for firing a warning shot to prevent a repeat attack by her abusive husband, delivered the IEFV Survivor Series keynote address (photos). On Oct. 19, Ny Nourn and Colby Lenz (below, left) held a discussion entitled "Surviving Prison and ICE Detention, Freeing Criminalized Survivors." Nourn was sentenced to life without parole after she reported her abusive ex-boyfriend's deadly violence, spent 16 years in prison, and was then detained by ICE. Lenz is co-founder of Survived and Punished, a national organizing project to end the criminalization of survivors of sexual and domestic violence.
"Our featured speakers are courageous voices and forces for reform," said Jane Stoever, IEFV director and UCI Law professor. "We created the fall series to bring attention to the common injustice of criminalizing abuse survivors; call for anti-violence, civil rights, and racial justice movements to work together; and encourage our community to reimagine and improve responses to gender-based violence."
The IEFV fall series will culminate on Nov. 9 with a colloquium entitled, "Beyond Criminalization: Public Health, Human Rights, Economic, and Community Responses to Domestic Violence." The event is approved for 3.75 hours of MCLE credit, and features scholars and movement leaders from across the nation. For details, including registration info and the schedule of presenters, please click here.
In her lecture on Oct. 29, Burk, director of the National LGBTQ Institute on Intimate Partner Violence and co-author of Trauma Stewardship: An Everyday Guide to Caring for Self While Caring for Others, traced the harmful consequences of indiscriminate mandatory reporting. Burk’s lecture drew from the results of a recent survey of more than 3,600 domestic violence survivors.
The IEFV unites faculty from more than 20 departments at UCI with community partners in research, education, and clinical interventions in family violence across the lifespan, including child abuse, teen dating violence, intimate partner violence, sexual assault, abuse of people with disabilities, and elder abuse. Through the IEFV, an unprecedented range of experts and partners work to address this multifaceted social, health, economic, and legal problem.
To view more upcoming events presented by the IEFV, please click here.
To sign up for the IEFV’s newsletter, please click here.
(Pictured below, left to right, Colby Lenz and Ny Nourn on Oct. 19)