Guantánamo Teach-In Today

Rapoport Center Presents Guantánamo Multi-Media Event, Oct. 5

AUSTIN, Texas—The Bernard and Audre Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice at The University of Texas School of Law will present a live webcast of the program, "Guantánamo: How Should We Respond," on Thursday, Oct. 5. It is free and open to the public.

The webcast will show the day-long national "teach-in" where panelists will discuss the detentions in Guantánamo. The live program will take place at Seton Hall Law School in New Jersey. Panelists include journalists, doctors, clergy, military officers, scholars, released detainees, and their lawyers. Inspired by the techniques of teach-ins of the 1960s but utilizing the technology of the present, 200 other schools in 44 states will view the program and discuss the issues simultaneously.

"We are pleased to be playing a role in the development both of litigation strategies and of public education around the multiple issues faced by Guantanamo detainees and their families," said Professor Karen Engle, Director of the Rapoport Center. "With Congress currently in the midst of debating the contours of the detainee bill, there could not be a better time for this event."

The webcast will be shown from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m . and the live portion will take place from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. in UT Law's Charles I. Francis Auditorium.

The programming that will take place live at UT Law after the webcast includes a photography presentation, "Through the Walls," which portrays the faces, families and stories of detainees in the War on Terror.

UT students will then perform a staged reading of excerpts from the play, "Guantánamo: Honor Bound to Defend Freedom." Annelies Lottmann, '08, is producing the play reading and several of the performers are UT Law students.

These law students are also enrolled in a new course offered this semester by Professors Derek Jinks and Jack Ratliff, "Rule of Law in Wartime." In this course, students work closely with professors on the legal representation of the detainee while also exploring several issues that have broader jurisprudential significance for the role of law in war.

At the conclusion of the program, Judith Rhedin, assistant director of UT's Performing Arts Center, will participate in a conversation on human rights and the arts.

The many distinguished speakers participating in the program at Seton Hall include:

* Joe Margulies, Professor of Law at Northwestern Law School, lead counsel in Rasul v. Bush and author of Guantánamo and the Abuse of Presidential Power .
* Jane Mayer, New Yorker , author of several major articles on elements of the administration's detention policy.
* Carol Rosenberg, Miami Herald, first print journalist allowed to report from Guantánamo.
* Adam Zagorin, Time , he and his colleague Michael Duffy were the first journalists to reveal the details of an interrogation at Guantánamo.
* Walter Pincus, has reported on the history of coercive interrogations for the Washington Post
* Rear Admiral Donald Guter (Ret.), Dean of Duquesne Law School; Judge Advocate General of the U.S. Navy from 2000-2002
* Commander Charles Swift, started the Hamdan litigation as military defense counsel to Mr. Hamdan two years ago.
* Capt. James Yee, former Chaplain at Guantánamo, author of For God and Country: Faith and Patriotism Under Fire
* Dr. Gerald Koocher, President American Psychological Association
* Leonard Rubenstein, Physicians for Human Rights
* William H Taft IV, former Chief Legal Adviser, U.S. State Department

For more information on the schedule and participants of "Guantánamo: How Should We Respond," visit http://law.shu.edu/guantanamoteachin/.

Related Link:
Rapoport Center Upcoming Events: http://www.utexas.edu/law/academics/centers/humanrights/events/