AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION of Champaign County
Steering Committee Minutes
March 6, 2008 at 7 p.m.
Present: Bill Brown, Esther Patt, Marsha Woodbury, Carol Inskeep, Richard
Schnuer, Stephen Portnoy, Susan Cohen, Elaine Gehrmann, Lynne Rudasill
The meeting was formally brought to order shortly after 7 p.m.
The minutes of the February meeting were approved.
Old Business:
We debriefed "Talking Back to the First Amendment: A Community Forum on Free
Speech and Hate Speech", on Feb. 28th, the panel discussion at the law school,
and ways we might improve upon it next time, such as firmly limiting the time
each speaker had to present material.
Planning for the April 6 Annual Meeting
The meeting will be a brunch at The Great Impasta on Sunday, April 6, 2008. Bob
McChesney of Media Matters on NPR will be the speaker.
We planned the agenda of the annual meeting and assigned volunteers.
We set the honorarium for Bob McChesney at $200. Carol Inskeep will be giving
the Stone award to Bob McChesney and Esther Patt will present Rachel Dietkus the
Norton award.
David Gehrig, Stuart Laird and Carol Leff have agreed to join the steering
committee.
New Business:
We talked about the ACLU Annual Membership Conference on April 5 in Peoria. We
will work out a car pool by email.
Legislative Report-The newsletter updates members about current state of
legislation, and Esther Patt highlighted some of these issues.
On Tuesday, March 11, 2008, five restaurants in Champaign-Urbana will
participate in Share-A-Meal with Community Shares to help raise funds for dozens
of non-profit organizations including the Roger Baldwin Foundation of the ACLU.
Note: Of interest to all members:
The Illinois Policy Debate Team is hosting an intramural debate tournament to be
held on March 29th and 30th in Lincoln Hall and April 2nd at a location to be
determined. The resolution for the debates will be--
"Resolved: That the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign should issue
punitive sanctions for students who engage in expression that degrades,
intimidates, or incites violence on the basis of race, sexuality, gender,
ethnicity, religion or disability."
University of Illinois law students will present "Know Your Rights: How to Deal
with Cops, Money, and Your Boss". The Free Seminars take place at Champaign
Public Library, Room A: March 1, 8 & 15.
Organizations doing the seminars are Street Law the Black Law Students
Association, and the National Lawyers Guild.
The meeting was adjourned at 7:50 p.m.
Note: The time of the regular monthly meeting has changed to 7:00 p.m.
The next meeting is on Thursday, April 3, at 7 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Marsha Woodbury