Global Issues Forum to encourage civil discourse
MU's Difficult Dialogues Program is co-sponsoring the event.
Published Nov. 30, 2007
Panelists at the Chancellor's Global Issues Forum that will be held Monday will discuss a hot-button issue, interim Chief Diversity Officer Roger Worthington said.
Monday's forum, which will be moderated by Chancellor Brady Deaton, will feature a three-person panel that will discuss higher education and whether national security measures dealing with immigration have become a threat to academic freedom, Worthington said.
Worthington said the goal was not to encourage a debate, but to "facilitate dialogue that encourages civil discourse."
The event, co-sponsored by MU's Difficult Dialogues Program and the Chancellor's Global Issues Forum, is funded by a grant from the Ford Foundation Difficult Dialogues initiative.
Panelists at Monday's event include MU professors Abdullahi Ibrahim and Rigel Oliveri and UM-Kansas City professor Kris Kobach.
Kobach will be the second off-campus speaker to take part in the forum, Worthington said.
Kobach will join the panel with a high profile in the debate over immigration because of his experience working in the office of former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft.
Kobach served as the Ashcroft's chief adviser on immigration law and border security.
Worthington said the program will focus on immigration, which he said is likely to play a part in the country's political season.
Oliveri, who worked as a civil rights lawyer for many years, said she will look at the discussion on Monday from a perspective focused on civil rights.
"I'm interested in the treatment of people when they get to this country and the discrimination that can happen against people that are immigrants, legal or illegal, even the people that are U.S. citizens but who are of a different ethnicity," she said.
Oliveri said immigrants are frequently harassed.
While working as a lawyer, Oliveri said one of her larger cases involved cities that were illegally evicting and targeting Latino immigrants.
"You aren't allowed to discriminate based on ethnicity," she said. "Based on illegal residency, yes."
Oliveri hopes to increase awareness of the discrimination and harassment of immigrants through Monday's forum.
Ibrahim said he hopes to use the forum as a tool to provide an education for students and citizens alike to "navigate the discrepancy" between immigration and guarded borders.
"Any attempt to solve immigration is going to be an impossible job," he said. "Immigration is a leakage. It's a permanent thing. People are always going to be in a state of immigration."
The forum is scheduled for 4 to 5:30 p.m. on Monday in Ellis Auditorium.
It is free to the public.
