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Past Activities

The Center for Biotechnology and Global Health Policy prioritizes collaborative, cross-cultural and interdisciplinary exchanges, bringing scholars, policy makers, nongovernmental organization members and others to the University of California, Irvine for roundtables, symposia and points of engagement.
Michele Goodwin in panel discussion

Hate in an Era of Political Turmoil

The Center for Biotechnology & Global Health Policy’s 2017-2018 Colloquium Series Hate In A Period of Political Turmoil will launch on Friday, September 8, 2017 with a special event: Charlottesville: A Defining Moment, A Conversation with Reverend Jesse Jackson, Sr. This year, the CBGHP will host important and timely conversations that explore the rise in hate groups, speech and crimes; and the vulnerable communities they effect in the United States.

Reproductive Justic Initiative and LGBTQA Film Festival

Co-Sponsored with The LGBT Center OC and W-HUB (Womxn's Center)
The Reproductive Justice Initiative’s 2017-2018 film series Breaking Out of The Social Closet offers a nuanced examination of gender identity, celebrating the clear advancements and legal victories in recent years, while also exposing the painful costs of fighting stigma, shaming, and stereotypes.  It explores how sex and gender status continues to impact individual safety, civil and human rights, despite obvious advancements in marriage equality.  

  • October 19, 2017: Co-Sponsored with BLSA, Check It
    6:30 p.m., EDU Room 1111 Light Refreshments Provided

  • February 1, 2018: Growing Up Coy
    5:00 - 8:00 p.m. Talkback with local community leaders.
    EDU Room 1111, Light Refreshments Provided

  • February 8, 2018: Political Animals
    5:00 - 8:00 p.m. Talkback with local community leaders.
    EDU Room 1111,  Light Refreshments Provided
  • March 22, 2018: Paris is Burning
    5:00 - 8:00 p.m. Classroom discussion on race, class and LGBT issues with Professor Goodwin.
    EDU Room 1111,  Light Refreshments Provided

  • March 29, 2018: Free CeCe
    4:00 - 5:30 p.m. Talkback with CeCe McDonald, originally incarcerated for defending her life.
    EDU Room 1111,  Light Refreshments Provided

Congressional Briefing on Reproductive Health and Maternal Mortality

In cooperation with Congresswoman Robin Kelly, (IL-02), the Congressional Black Caucus Health Braintrust, and sponsored by the Reproductive Justice Initiative, this Briefing shines a bright and urgent light on the status of women’s reproductive and health care access and offers a crucial intervention on maternal mortality. ​Women in the United States suffer from an alarming rate of maternal mortality. More than in any other developed nation, women in the United States stand the risk of death during their pregnancies and childbirths. According to Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) data, per capita, more pregnant women die during pregnancy and childbirth in the United States than peer, developed nations such as Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Italy, France, England, Japan and others. Indeed, the United States ranks 50th in the world for maternal health and safety during pregnancy. What accounts for these horrific outcomes? This Congressional Briefing on Reproductive Health and Maternal Mortality addresses these urgent concerns.

  • Monday, October 30, 2017, Congressional Briefing, Washington, D.C.
    12:00 PM – 1:30 PM EDT
    House Visitors Center
    (HVC 201AB)
    First Street NE
    Washington, DC 20515
    More details >
    View video recording >

Distinguished Lecture: Professor Richard Epstein

Co-sponsored with The Federalist Society

Professor Richard Epstein of New York University Law School and the University of Chicago will visit with the Center for Biotechnology & Global Health Policy on Thursday, January 25, 2018 from 12:05 pm -1:00 pm to present a work in progress: "The Nature of The Religious Firm." Professor Epstein’s research focuses on constitutional law, tort law, property rights, and communications law.

Thursday, January 25, 2018
12:05 PM – 1:00 PM
EDU 1111, UC Irvine School of Law
More details >

#MeToo: Making a Movement

Co-sponsored by the UCI Law Center on Law, Equality and Race and the UCI Initiative to End Family Violence

In recent months, #MeToo has become a shorthand for exposing the myriad settings in which individuals, particularly women, encounter sexual harassment and violence. The #MeToo: Making a Movement series seeks to advance a nuanced conversation about sexual harassment and violence. This expands narratives beyond Hollywood to include a broader discussion about families, religious institutions, academia, and workplaces that employ the most vulnerable workers. The series probes whether #MeToo is simply a moment or whether it is a developing movement responding to an urgently needed reckoning for our society. If so, how deep and wide do the experiences recounted in the press extend in our society? How can we give voice to survivors, while also forging due process? How do these issues relate to race, class, sex, religion, and sexual orientation? In this series, we seek to address not only sexual harassment and violence, but also healing, redemption, forgiveness, and restorative justice.

February 28 2018: Not Just a Moment, a Movement: Unifying Theory and Practice
5:15 p.m., EDU 1111

March 12 2018: Fostering Healthy, Responsible and Accountable Educational Environments
12:00 p.m., EDU 1111

February 28 2018: Addressing Sexual Misconduct in the Workplace and Professions
12:00 p.m., MPAA 430

February 28 2018: Violations of Trust and Issues of Accountability, Restorative Justice, Healing, Forgiveness and Redemption
12:00 p.m., EDU 1131

Women, Law, Society & Technology Symposium

The 2018 symposium on Women, Law, and Technology, brings together renowned scholars, activists, tech engineers, and policy makers to examine the ways in which technologies enhance the lives of women and girls, but also curate the spaces for sabotage, harassment, sexualization, and even the gendering of technology.  Technology is a benefit, but at times also a hindrance, not only in the spaces where technologies are developed, but also at elite institutions where science and technologies are taught.  This conference unpacks a broad and dynamic discourse on the intersections of sex, gender, race, and age in technology, to build a better understanding about bullying in tech; sexual sabotage, including robbing women of their work; the blind spots of algorithms; sexualizing science, and harming women with the aid of technology, including revenge pornography and other means that selectively target women for harassment. 

April 20-21, 2018
UC Irvine School of Law
More details >

Baby Markets Roundtable

Hosted at the University of California, Hastings College of Law
Co-Sponsored by the University of California, Irvine School of Law

The Baby Markets Roundtable will bring together an interdisciplinary group of scholars, policy-makers, civil society advocates, journalists, activists, and others to examine the myriad ways in which families are created, shaped, formed, and regulated. The Roundtable addresses the role and status of the child, mother, father, surrogate, grandparents, and the state in the creation and deconstruction of the family. Historically, the Roundtable explores the shifts in family-making, reflecting trends in single- and same-sex parenting as well as the ways in which heteronormativity constructs legal and social norms in child custody, child-rearing, and family planning.

May 4-5, 2018
UC Hastings College of Law
More details > 

UCI Talks Sex and Gender

This colloquium series engages in timely, important conversations and debates on gender, sex, and race in politics, marriage equality, safety on campuses, and much more.  Join us for liberated, robust conversations on the role of sex, gender, and law in society.

  • October 27, 2016: Sex, Women, & Politics: Anita Hill & Clarence Thomas 25 Years Later
    12:00 – 1:15 p.m., LAW 3500

  • November 10, 2016: Race, Sex, & the 2016 Election
    12:00 – 1:15 p.m., LAW 3750

  • January 26, 2017: Interracial Intimacy: 50 Years After Loving v. Virginia
    12:00 – 1:15 p.m., LAW 3500
    Event Postponed - new date TBA

  • February 23, 2017: When Pride Isn't Enough: Policing & Punishment of LGBTQ
    12:00 – 1:15 p.m., LAW 3500

  • March 30, 2017: Panel Discussion: Rape Culture & Sexual Assault
    12:00 – 1:00 p.m., MPAA 420
    More Details >

  • April 20, 2017: Panel Discussion: Law & The Modern Family
    12:00 – 1:15 p.m., LAW 3500
    More Details >

Women & Leadership: Breaking Barriers in Law, Science & Business

How do women break barriers in business?  What are the unique obstacles they encounter?  How do they forge opportunities?  Join us on March 20, 2017 for the Center for Biotechnology and Global Health Policy's colloquium series on women in leadership, where we highlight chief executive officers, executive directors, and business leaders changing the way we think about women and entrepreneurship.  This spring we will feature a discussion with Syovata Edari, an award-winning chocolatier, businesswoman, and lawyer who has taken the world of chocolate by storm.

This event continues as a part of a larger workshop series that focuses on bringing the career paths of entrepreneurs in science and business to the forefront. Last year we featured Kay Napier, the CEO of Arbonne International Cosmetics.  Please join us.

  • March 20, 2017: Syovata Edari
    12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m., MPAA Executive Commons
    Prof. Goodwin and Syovata Edari discuss the pursuits of law, business, and chocolate.
    More details >

Initiative for Studying Gun Violence Town Halls

The Initiative for Studying Gun Violence and Trauma will host three town hall meetings and other events across the country during the 2016-2017 academic year:

  • September 22, 2016, Chicago: Gun Violence and Vulnerable Populations Town Hall
    University Club of Chicago
    This town hall meeting focuses on how gun violence and trauma uniquely impact vulnerable communities, including racial minorities, children, the homeless, and individuals with mental disabilities. More details >

  • November 1, 2016, Washington D.C.: Congressional Briefing
    U.S. Capitol Visitor Center, Room HVC-201 A & B, 12:00 p.m. ET
    This Congressional Briefing focused on educating lawmakers and expanding awareness, discourse, and public policy on gun violence, trauma, and policing, particularly as it relates to how gun violence impacts low-income communities throughout the U.S. In just the past 14 years, firearm deaths accounted for over 470,000 fatalities, making death by firearm the second-leading cause of all violence-related deaths in our nation. This Congressional Briefing will educate lawmakers and the public about the public health, mental health, and economic impacts of gun violence. Participants offered recommendations for pathways forward. Joining us were: Dr. George Woods, President, International Academy of Law and Mental Health, Judge Glenda Hatchett (ret.) (representing Philando Castille’s family); Camiella Williams, a member of Congresswoman Robin Kelley’s Violence Prevention Taskforce. Ms. Williams is a millennial who has suffered the deaths of 28 loved ones in Chicago due to gun violence; Robert Bennett, Esq., civil rights litigator and expert on police-civilian interaction; Dr. Patricia Jones Blessman, psychologist and expert on child trauma; and Professor Michele Goodwin, Chancellor’s Professor of Law and Chair, Initiative for Studying Gun Violence and Trauma. More details >

  • November 1, 2016, Washington D.C.: Gun Violence and Trauma: Policing & Training Town Hall
    National Press Club, 6:00 p.m.
    This town hall meeting featured a discussion on policing, police violence, and training. It highlighted the privatization of law enforcement agencies, looking particularly at the fiscal structures that underlie, and at times demand, high risk policing practices. More details >

  • May 5, 2017, Los Angeles: Militarization of Policing Town Hall
    Feminist Majority Foundation, 433 S. Beverly Dr., Beverly Hills, CA 90212
    This town hall meeting will examine the militarization of policing in the United States.  We will discuss the impacts of militarization on communities as well as the thin divide between soldiers returning from war and whether appropriate services are provided for those who have suffered from war trauma. Register Here >

2016 Baby Markets International Congress

April 1—3, 2016

The Baby Markets International Congress celebrates the 10th Anniversary of the Baby Markets Roundtable series founded by the Center for Biotechnology and Global Health Policy's Director, Chancellor’s Professor Michele Goodwin. This Congress will bring together an interdisciplinary group of scholars, policy-makers, civil society advocates, journalists, activists, and others to examine the myriad ways in which families are created, shaped, formed, and regulated. Details >

Colloquia

Oct. 19-22, 2016: 2016 World Indigenous Law Conference

  • CBGHP is a co-sponsor of The World Indigenous Law Conference, held every two years and hosted in October 2016 in North America for the first time. This Conference is an international forum aimed at gathering Indigenous lawyers, practitioners, academics and those interested in furthering their understanding of issues facing Indigenous Peoples. Key elements of this conference include an international discourse on Indigenous Peoples’ Jurisprudence: examining legal frameworks and strategies for self-determined futures. This third such international law convening will focus on Indigenous Peoples' legal issues, rights and strategies.

February 23, 2016: Congressional Briefing: Women, Girls and Mass Incarceration

  • The 2016 Congressional Briefing features Professor Michele Goodwin, Chancellor's professor at UC Irvine School of Law. The event brought together an interdisciplinary group of scholars to examine why the United States incarcerates more women than any other nation in the world. Details >

January 22, 2016: Reproductive Justice Initiative Luncheon: Rethinking Roe v. Wade

  • This event will bring together legal and medical professionals, scholars, organizers, community leaders and voices to address the state of women’s reproductive and health care rights. Featured speakers include Prof. Michele Goodwin, Hon. Lynne Riddle (Ret.) and Dr. Jen Russo. Co-sponsored by the Center for Biotechnology and Global Health Policy. Details >

January–April 2016: Matters of Health Colloquium Series

  • This interdisciplinary colloquium series examines the complex and sometimes controversial issues that arise in health, bioethics, and biotechnology. These issues range from financing health care, bringing pharmaceuticals and other products to the marketplace, regulating the selling of medicines, to medical experimentation, mental health, debating access to reproductive medicines, including contraception and assisted reproduction. These issues even span to organ transplantation and access to basic medicines. Details >

November 13, 2015: 2015 Stem Cell Symposium

  • Does informed consent convey different meanings depending on who invokes the term? When do we know that consent is informed? What are human research subjects entitled to know before agreeing to participate in clinical trials? What information are they entitled to during the trial? What should they be told after the trial? The 2015 Stem Cell Symposium considers these important questions and others concerning the roles of law, science, technology, ethics, and society in the production and promotion of scientific knowledge through human research. Hosted by the Sue & Bill Gross Stem Cell Research Center and the School of Law at the University of California at Irvine, this meeting queries whether the FDA and other government agencies should intensify the regulation of human subject research and establish enforcement standards. Details >
Nov. 6, 2015: Reproductive Justice Inititative Hearings
  • The Center for Biotechnology and Global Health Policy will host the Reproductive Justice Hearings at The National Press Club in Washington, D.C. Expert panels, including an opening address by Prof. Michele Goodwin, will cover such issues as violations of women’s reproductive privacy, women’s mass incarceration (and their health behind bars), and domestic violence. The hearing was livestreamed from 9:00 a.m. to 4:15 p.m. ET.

September 22, 2015: Women & Mass Incarceration: The U.S. Crisis of Women and Girls Behind Bars

  • This Summit shines a light on mass incarceration in the United States, specifically illuminating the dramatic consequences in the lives of women and girls. Despite the U.S. incarcerating more women than anywhere else in the world, their plight is often overlooked. This summit turns to the missing narrative of women in prison, including failed drug war policies. It explores complex patterns that frame women’s subjugation to law enforcement and the extra-legal and collateral consequences of policing women, including felony disenfranchisement, loss of housing and the chilling impacts on their children.

Speakers/Lectures

April 21, 2017: Paul A. Lombardo - A Troubling Legacy: Eugenic Boundaries on Reproduction

  • UC Irvine, Sue & Bill Gross Hall, 2:00 p.m.
    Paul A. Lombardo (Georgia State University College of Law) is a lawyer and historian who served from 2011-2016 as a senior advisor to the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues, where he participated in studies such as "Ethically Impossible: STD Research in Guatemala from 1946-1948" (2011). He has published extensively on topics in health law, medico-legal history, and bioethics, and is best known for his work on the legal history of the American eugenics movement. 

Nov. 2, 2015: Author Meets Reader: Dorothy Roberts

  • Co-sponsored with the Center on Law, Equality and Race (CLEaR), this evening discussion features speaker Dorothy Roberts and her book Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics and Big Business Recreate Race in the Twenty-First Century.

May 9, 2015: When Religion Intersects with Mental, Public, and Environmental Health

  • Prof. Goodwin speaks at the 2015 Annual Conference on Law, Religion, and Health in America, hosted by The Petrie-Flom Center for Health Law Policy, Biotechnology, and Bioethics at Harvard Law School. As part of the panel “When Religion Intersects with Mental, Public and Evnironmental Health,” she speaks about Race, HIV/AIDS and Homophobia in the Black Church.

May 7, 2015: The Ethics & Economics of Compensation for Body Parts

  • Prof. Goodwin is a panelist at the 2015 Robert H. Levi Leadership Symposium and Carey Symposium in Markets and Ethics presented by The Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics and the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School. Prof. Goodwin joins a panel of top economists and ethicists in the field, including Nobel Prize winner Alvin Roth.

May 5, 2015: Policing Pregnant Women

  • Featuring Chancellor’s Professor of Law Michele Goodwin, at Minnesota Academy of Medicine, Minneapolis, Minnesota

April 16, 2015: The Rhetoric of Reproduction

  • Keynote Speaker: Chancellor’s Professor of Law Michele Goodwin
    Case Western Reserve Law School, Cleveland, Ohio

April 1, 2015: UCI Chancellor’s Professor Lecture by Prof. Michele Goodwin

  • Chancellor’s Chairs are endowed positions awarded to select UC Irvine professors across the campus who demonstrate exceptional academic merit. Prof. Goodwin presented “Reproductive Justice in An Era of Resistance.”

February 25, 2015: The U.S. Supreme Court and Same Sex Marriage: Reflections on Power, Privacy, and Equality

  • Featuring Dale Carpenter, Distinguished University Teaching Professor and Earl R. Larson Professor of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Law, University of Minnesota Law School

February 20, 2015: Resurrecting Jim Crow: Power, Racism and The American Road

February 17, 2015, UCI University Club: A Discussion of Reproductive Justice and Health Care

  • Join the Center for Biotechnology & Global Health Policy and the Newport Beach Women's Democratic Club for a conversation that considers the future of reproductive health care in California and throughout the United States. Dean Chemerinsky will reflect on the Hobby Lobby decision; Prof. Michele Goodwin will moderate the discussion.

January 11, 2015: My Sister’s Keeper? Organs, Ova, and Biological Divides

  • Featuring Chancellor’s Professor of Law Michele Goodwin
    11:00 a.m.–1:00 p.m. Gross Stem Cell Center, University of California, Irvine

January 8, 2015: Death or Black Markets: A Probing Look at U.S. Organ Transplant Policy

  • Featuring Chancellor’s Professor of Law Michele Goodwin
    5:00–6:00 p.m., Health Policy Research Institute, University of California, Irvine

November 19, 2014: Public Forum: The Constitutional Implications of Ebola: Civil Liberties and Civil Rights in Times of Health Crises

  • Featuring Reverend Jesse L. Jackson, Sr., Rainbow PUSH Coalition; Dean Erwin Chemerinsky, UC Irvine School of Law; Dr. George Woods, International Academy of Law and Mental Health; Professor Michele Goodwin, Chancellor’s Chair, UC Irvine School of Law; Professor Andrew Noymer, Program in Public Health, UC Irvine

Roundtables

Roundtables take place each year at CBGHP. The gatherings are driven by the Center's annual research agenda.

April 21-22, 2017: Law & Religion Roundtable

  • This roundtable focuses on the values and principles at the intersection of law, society, and religion. Specifically, roundtable participants will scrutinize the tensions between law and religion in relation to four key thematic areas: reproductive rights and reproductive justice; physician aid-in-dying; LGBTQ concerns and the law; and parent/child relationships in medical care. This is a closed event for invited participants only. More details >

June 5, 2015: Law, Sex and Exceptionalism

  • This roundtable engages a legal and public policy debate on law and sexuality, paying close attention to the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision in Hobby Lobby. Participants consider the role of law in benefitting and burdening women’s sexual identities, liberties and privacy. The roundtable evaluates the influence of religion, cultural politics, race and class in sexual rights discourse. Topics presented will range from barriers to contraceptive rights, shifting sexual identities, reproductive justice and sexual exceptionalism.

Dialogue and Documentary Series

January 15–April 9, 2015:
Conversations on Mental Health, Race, and Society is a series examining the intersections of law, race, society, and mental health through the use of dialogue and documentary. The series provides a forum for thinking about the emotional, psychological, and mental health dimensions of social violence and discrimination. The series examines legal cases as a platform for the discussions. Series schedule here >

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CBGHP Activities

Tune in for On The Issues with Michele Goodwin, a Podcast hosted by Professor Goodwin!

April 26, 2021: Town Hall on Inclusive Healthcare in UC System

REWATCH: Advancing Women's Equality: What's Next?

PREVIOUS EVENTS:

March 10, 2021: Advancing Women's Equality: Reproductive Health, Rights, and Justice

March 1, 2021: Ongoing Challenges of Disability Discrimination in Law, Politics & Society

February 19, 2021: Reckoning and Reconciliation: Art, Architecture, and Culture in Contested Sites

February 8, 2021: Advancing Women's Equality: Race, Sex, and Policing in America

January 13, 2021: Advancing Women's Equality: Women, Mass Incarceration, and Criminal Justice

October 30, 2020:  Women on the Frontlines: COVID & Beyond

October 7, 2020: The Appeal & Now This: Ending Legalized Slavery In U.S. Prisons

June 4, 2020:  A Conversation on Protecting Civil Rights and Civil Liberties in Times of Political Crisis 

June 30, 2020: After June Medical Services: The Past, Present, and Future of Regulating Reproduction

June 30, 2020: Elevating and Engaging with Black Lives on Law School Campuses

May 14, 2020: UCI Sue & Bill Gross Stem Cell Research Center Panel on COVID-19

May 13, 2020: Michele Goodwin on Quarantine and the Limits of Government Action - COVID-19 & The Law Series

May 12, 2020: Panel Discussion: Reproductive Health & Rights in a Time of Coronavirus

May 4, 2020: Disparate Impact of COVID-19 on Communities of Color hosted by American Constituion Society 

Contact

Nassim Alisobhani
Coordinator
nalisobhani@law.uci.edu
(949) 824-5601 

Merima Tricic
Senior Fellow
mtricic@uci.edu