What would you do if a house is on fire and the firefighters on the scene not only refuse to put it out, they joyfully add fuel to it while joking about how great it was to start the fire in the first place? After talking with today’s guest, Shiwali Patel, Senior Director of Education Justice at the National Women’s Law Center, about protecting students under Title IX, this is the scenario that came to mind for me. Thankfully, when faced with the endless challenges of navigating systems that are being increasingly weaponized against the very people they were meant to protect, Shiwali doesn’t run from the fire. She is equipped with years of experience, a deep well of passion, and a belief that even as systems are falling apart around us, we can still make meaningful change and protect students.

Shiwali Patel (she/her) is the Senior Director of Education Justice at the National Women’s Law Center where she oversees advocacy addressing sex-based harassment in schools and works to strengthen civil rights protections for LGBTQI+ students and advocates broadly for civil rights in education. Previously, she was at the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR), where she worked on policy and guidance interpreting Title IX protections, including schools' responsibilities in responding to sexual harassment, protections for transgender students, and the rights of girls of color. Shiwali was also an Administrative Judge at the U.S. Department of Energy, a Special Assistant U.S. Attorney in D.C. in the Sex Offense and Domestic Violence Unit, a judicial law clerk, and a community educator at the D.C. Rape Crisis Center. Shiwali currently serves as the Co-Chair of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights’ Education Task Force and on the Board of Directors of Callisto. She is also an adjunct professor at American University where she teaches Gender and Law, and Sex Discrimination in Education at the law school.

Links:

The Lawyer who Can’t Let it Go

Defending Trans Women’s Rights

The Midlife Crisis of Title IX

Don’t Believe Betsy DeVos

The Proposed Title IX Rules Make No Practical, Moral, or Legal Sense

Years Later, We Must Amend Title IX to End Sex-Based Harassment in Schools

Ending Sexual Violence 50 Years After Title IX

Both/And is a project of the New Mexico Coalition of Sexual Assault Programs. www.nmcsap.org
Need support? Call, text, or chat the NM Sexual Assault Helpline at 1-844-NMSAHLP | 1-844-667-2457 | www.nmsahelp.org

Intro music: "Can't Get Enough Sunlight" written and recorded by Michelle Chamuel http://michellechamuel.com/
Logo: Alex Ross-Reed
Produced by: Jess Clark
Edited By: Dacia Clay at Pillow Fort Studios
https://www.pillowfortpodcasts.com

“We don’t have a problem with support for sex ed in this country, we have a problem with prioritizing it, and making it an issue that they want to stick their neck out on. We have an action problem”

In this episode, I had the absolute joy of speaking with Jaclyn Friedman, author, organizer, and Executive Director of EducateUS, a movement working to bring about a complete transformation of K-12 public sex education in the United States, in order to foster a new generation of Americans who are secure in their own bodily sovereignty, recognize and respect that sovereignty in everyone else regardless of race, place, creed, class or gender, know all the essential facts about how bodies work, and are fully prepared to build loving relationships with themselves and others.

Jaclyn and I took a deep dive into comprehensive sex ed as a liberatory and anti-authoritarian tool that creates change far beyond the high school classroom.

EducateUS is led by Founder and Executive Director Jaclyn Friedman, a lifelong activist, advocate and organizer. Friedman’s work has globally popularized the affirmative consent standard of sexual consent. Her first book, Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and a World Without Rape, was one of Publisher’s Weekly’s Top 100 Books of 2009, and has inspired new laws in five U.S. states, as well as policies on countless campuses across the country and the world. She also spearheaded the legendary #FBrape campaign, which forced Facebook to address and exclude content that promotes or trivializes violence against women under their hate speech policy, and is founder and former executive director of Women, Action & the Media (WAM!).

LINKS:

Drinking and rape lets wise up about it

Educate US Action

Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Power and a World Without Rape

Unscrewed: Women, Sex, Power, and How to Stop Letting the System Screw Us All

What You Really Really Want: The Smart Girl's Shame-Free Guide to Sex and Safety

Believe Me: How Trusting Women Can Change the World

Sex Ed For Social Change

Both/And is a project of the New Mexico Coalition of Sexual Assault Programs. www.nmcsap.org
Need support? Call, text, or chat the NM Sexual Assault Helpline at 1-844-NMSAHLP | 1-844-667-2457 | www.nmsahelp.org

Intro music: "Can't Get Enough Sunlight" written and recorded by Michelle Chamuel http://michellechamuel.com/
Logo: Alex Ross-Reed
Produced by: Jess Clark
Edited By: Dacia Clay at Pillow Fort Studios
https://www.pillowfortpodcasts.com

In my time doing prevention, I have spent an unreasonable number of hours thinking about why people can’t just get it! Why can’t they see that our positions on violence and oppression are rational and moral and just…right!? Well, it turns out that when it comes to social change, how we communicate an idea is often just as important as the idea itself. Today's guest, Dr. Julie Sweetland is a sociolinguist and a senior advisor at the FrameWorks Institute. She is an expert in framing research and strategy, and in this conversation, she was able to answer those questions for me and give me a clearer path forward in framing that actually works.

Since joining FrameWorks in 2012, Dr. Sweetland has designed and led reframing initiatives on climate change, education equity, childhood adversity, and more. Her skill in translating framing research into communication strategy has helped advocates, policymakers, and scientists drive change at the national, state, and grassroots levels. Since 2017, Julie has worked primarily with the public health sector, bringing the science and strategy of framing to health topics like health equity, tobacco control, maternal mortality, and childhood vaccination.

Prior to joining FrameWorks, Julie spent over a decade working in education reform as a classroom teacher, teacher educator, and advocate. At Center for Inspired Teaching, she designed an innovative teacher residency which has since trained hundreds of progressive educators who work throughout DC public schools.

Julie’s linguistic research has focused on the intersection of language and race, with a particular focus on how language can be used to disrupt racism in schools and beyond. Her research has appeared in Journal of Sociolinguistics, Educational Researcher, and she is the co-author of African American, Creole, and Other Vernacular Englishes in Education.

Dr. Sweetland is a graduate of Georgetown University and completed her MA and PhD in linguistics at Stanford University.

LINKS:
Frameworks
Compassion Fatigue
Water use in Santa Fe, NM over 20 years.

Both/And is a project of the New Mexico Coalition of Sexual Assault Programs. www.nmcsap.org
Need support? Call, text, or chat the NM Sexual Assault Helpline at 1-844-NMSAHLP | 1-844-667-2457 | www.nmsahelp.org

Intro music: "Can't Get Enough Sunlight" written and recorded by Michelle Chamuel http://michellechamuel.com/
Logo: Alex Ross-Reed
Produced by: Jess Clark
Edited By: Dacia Clay at Pillow Fort Studios
https://www.pillowfortpodcasts.com