Events

2025–2026 Events

 

The Impact of Contemporary Immigration Enforcement on Immigrant Communities

Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2025 | 12 – 1 p.m. | King Hall, Room 1001 | Streaming Link

Immigration enforcement has been in the news over the last six months. Roving patrols of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in Los Angeles as well as many other enforcement operations and threats are having devastating impacts on California communities. This panel of experts will shed light on the community impacts of, and responses to, the current enforcement campaign.

Raquel Aldana standing and smiling at the camera.
Martin Luther King Jr. Professor of Law Raquel Aldana

Martin Luther King Jr. Professor of Law Raquel Aldana was the inaugural UC Davis Associate Vice Chancellor for Academic Diversity and served on the task force that helped UC Davis become a Hispanic Serving Institution. Aldana has led multiple research projects and programs around gender violence, transitional justice, criminal justice, sustainable development, immigrant justice, and immigrant trauma. She has authored or edited five books and published over thirty law review articles or book chapters on transitional justice, criminal justice, sustainable development, inter-cultural legal sensibility, and immigration.

Profile picture for Amagda Perez
Amagda Pérez ’91

Professor of Law Amagda Pérez ’91 is Co-Director of the UC Davis School of Law Immigration Law Clinic and Executive Director of the California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation, a non-profit legal service and advocacy organization that champions the rights of California’s rural poor. At King Hall, she supervises second- and third-year law students as they prepare deportation defense cases. She served on the UC Davis AB540 Task Force on Unauthorized Immigrant Students and has chaired the Legal Aid Association of California.

Giselle Garcia ’23
Giselle Garcia ’23

Giselle Garcia ’23 is a former Aoki Center fellow. She currently serves as Programs Director at NorCal Resist, the immigration rapid response network for 25 counties in Northern California. The network is composed of hundreds of volunteers and community partner organizations from Sacramento to the Oregon border who are trained in best practices to observe, document, and triage people who are detained by ICE into support services, as well as to provide pro se assistance for various immigration petitions and motions in an attempt to address the dearth of accessible immigration legal services.

Aidín Castillo Mazantini ’11
Aidín Castillo Mazantini ’11

Aidín Castillo Mazantini ’11 is Executive Director of the UC Immigrant Legal Services Center (UCIMM), which provides free immigration legal services to undocumented UC students and students’ families. She was previously Director of the Immigrants’ Rights Practice at Centro Legal de la Raza, one of the largest removal defense programs in California. Prior to that, she was in charge of launching the Immigrant Legal Resource Center’s national immigration policy office in Washington, DC. She is a founding member of SPEAK, one of the first undocumented student groups for college students.

 

One Term Later: Where Do LGBTQ+ Rights Stand?

Monday, November 3, 2025 | 12 – 1 p.m. | King Hall, Room 1001

UC Davis Law Professor Courtney G. Joslin wearing a black blouse and blue cardigan. She is standing in front of a bookshelf.
Professor Courtney Joslin
Brian Soucek
Professor Brian Soucek
Professor Aaron Tang
Professor Aaron Tang

Join Professors Courtney Joslin, Brian Soucek and Aaron Tang for an in-depth discussion of the Supreme Court's LGBTQ+ jurisprudence across two consecutive terms. Our distinguished faculty panelists will analyze the most significant cases from last term and examine the emerging docket for this term, exploring how the Court's approach to LGBTQ+ rights is evolving. This comparative analysis will provide crucial insights into recent developments in constitutional law and the trajectory of LGBTQ+ litigation at the nation's highest court.

Lunch provided. Sponsored by: Aoki Center for Critical Race and Nation Studies, Lambda Law Students Association, King Hall Community Engagement Committee, and the Law School Office for Student Affairs.

 

Ederlina Co
Professor Ederlina Co

Racial Justice Speaker Series: Seeing Through Blind Spots: Lessons in Intersectionality from the Suffrage Movement for Abortion Rights and Justice

Tuesday, January 27, 2026 | 12 – 1 p.m. | King Hall, Room 1301 | Streaming Link

McGeorge Professor Ederlina Co researches reproductive rights and justice. In her forthcoming article, “Seeing Through Blind Spots: Lessons in Intersectionality from the Suffrage Movement for Abortion Rights and Justice” (Northeastern University Law Review), Co applies a Critical Race Feminism lens to consider the lessons the suffrage movement has for the post-Dobbs abortion rights movement.

Created in response to the tragic killings by police of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and others and the widespread protests that followed, UC Davis Law’s Racial Justice Speaker Series is now returning. Reaffirming the law school’s commitment to racial justice, the series invites leading scholars from around the country to explore systemic racism as it pertains to all communities of color and areas of law. The goals are to inform, enlighten, and most important engage in meaningful conversation with our King Hall community and the larger public.