In January 2021, 51 women of color will be sworn in as members of the U.S. Congress — more than ever before. Even beyond Congress, women of color have been gaining ground in leadership on the state and local levels, within national, state and grassroots political organizations, and as visible political leaders within and beyond electoral politics. This webinar centered on how Women of Color are fundamentally shaping U.S. democracy.

This event was organized as part of the Belnick Family LaFeber/Lowi Presidential Forum, which honors the teaching and scholarship of Professors Walter LaFeber and Theodore Lowi. It seeks to foster student engagement within American politics and supports programming around each U.S. presidential election to encourage public engagement with the core issues facing the United States and the world. 

Panelists

Ilia Calderón is an Emmy Award–winning journalist, the coanchor of Univision’s flagship evening newscast Noticiero Univision, and cohost of Univision’s primetime news magazine Aquí y Ahora. She is the first Afro-Latina to anchor a national weekday evening newscast for a major Hispanic broadcast network in the United States, having previously coanchored three other news desks for Univision and two for Telemundo. She is the author of Es mi turno: un viaje en busca de mi voz y mis raíces. She currently resides in Miami, Florida, with her husband and daughter.

Shasti Conrad is the first woman of color chair for the Martin Luther King County Democrats in WA State. In 2020, she founded Opportunity PAC and CTRL Z. She has built her career understanding how a new, more diverse generation thinks and operates and fighting for diversity and inclusion—from the White House and Princeton University to the private and nonprofit sectors. She has worked with Nobel Peace Prize winners Malala Yousafzai and Kailash Satyarthi was the U.S. Campaign Manager for the 100 Million Campaign, a youth mobilization effort to end child labor and trafficking in the United States.

Chryl Laird is an Assistant Professor of Government and Legal Studies at Bowdoin College. She studies American Politics with a specialization in race and ethnic politics and political psychology. Her book (with Ismail White), Steadfast Democrats: How Social Forces Shape Political Behavior, examines how Black partisanship to the Democratic party is maintained through social networks and political norms. Her research and commentary has been featured on a number of media outlets including The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR, The Atlantic, and FiveThirtyEight.

Moderator

Jamila Michener is an associate professor in the department of Government at Cornell University. She studies poverty, race, and public policy in the United States. She is author of Fragmented Democracy: Medicaid, Federalism and Unequal Politics (Cambridge University Press). Her current research examines the ways that civil legal institutions affect democratic citizenship in marginalized communities. She is co-director of the Cornell Center of Health Equity and chair of the advisory board for the Cornell Prison Education Program (CPEP).