Law professor and civil rights attorney Britney Wilson will explore the meaning, nature and limitations of alignment in the context of social movements and advocacy when she speaks on campus May 16.

Wilson is an associate professor of law and director of the Civil Rights and Disability Justice Clinic at New York Law School. Her talk, “Down for the Cause: Grace, Space, and Belonging in Social Movements,” will be Tuesday, May 16, at 5:30 p.m. in Room 175, Knight Law Center.

Wilson’s talk is part of the Oregon Humanities Center’s 2022-23 Belonging series. The lecture is free and open to the public and will be livestreamed. Register online.

Among other topics, she will discuss whether and when alignment coincides with shared personal identity or experience and when it does not. She will also consider how and why members of marginalized groups may seek to protect and maintain self-determination over their own experiences and the impact of the concept of “belonging” on quests for external support.

In doing so, Wilson will evaluate whether and how societal structures, including but not limited to racism and ableism, affect strategy and positioning within social justice causes and potentially challenge the sense of belonging often believed to be inherent in such spaces.  

Prior to joining the New York Law School, Wilson was a staff attorney at the National Center for Law and Economic Justice, a Bertha Justice fellow at the Center for Constitutional Rights, and a Marvin M. Karpatkin fellow in the Racial Justice Program at the American Civil Liberties Union.

Born with cerebral palsy, Wilson has written and spoken extensively about disability and the intersection of race and disability for various media outlets, including The Nation, Longreads and “This American Life.” She also has testified about issues facing people with disabilities before both local and international governing bodies, including the New York City Council and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.  

An accomplished writer and artist, Wilson also has published and performed short stories, creative nonfiction essays and poetry, including on the HBO series “Brave New Voices.”