“Proud, reassured and excited” — that’s how Nicole Mozee felt after seeing the success of the inaugural Civil Rights and Social Justice Symposium at Wilmington University School of Law. One hundred twenty-five people attended the free event on WilmU’s Brandywine campus, a response so great that it maxed out the space, with more participants joining online.
Nicole Mozee
“We’re now bringing the action with the words,” says Professor Mozee, named a Delaware Today Top Lawyer for civil rights and Delaware State Bar Association (DSBA) Changemaker. “I hope they walked away with a charge of this is what I can do, this is what I should do, and let me encourage others to do the same.”
The symposium, titled “The Impact of Collaboration and Advocacy” and co-sponsored by the DSBA, examined legal perspectives on activism, hate crimes and voting rights.
“One of the biggest takeaways was with our voting rights panel, which really focused on accessibility,” says Professor Mozee, who co-chaired the event with WilmU Law Professor Patricia Wise. “Delaware has made a lot of progress in this area, but there are still so many avenues we can explore as a state to ensure equity in one of the most civic and democratic processes you can ever do — voting.”
NAACP Legal Defense Fund Speaker Offers Insights
Keynote speaker Jin Hee Lee director of strategic initiatives at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, emphasized education, highlighting the organization’s past and present advocacy.
Jin Hee Lee
“It is just, I think, even more important now than ever before to not only commit but prioritize the importance of racial equity in our educational system because it produces the opportunities and the pipelines that will make us a better country,” she told the audience. “You know, otherwise we are depriving ourselves from an incredible resource, untapped resource, of people who can do amazing things.”
Lee discussed the 70th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, which deemed racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional, and she dissected another landmark Supreme Court case: Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard. The 2023 ruling rejected affirmative action in college acceptance.
“She went through and highlighted the top five most common myths about what this decision means, and she demystified them and debunked them for attendees,” Professor Mozee says. “People liked that she put a practitioner’s perspective on it as opposed to a legal academic perspective, and I think that made it a bit more relatable.”
2025 Civil Rights and Social Justice Symposium Announced
Plans are under way for next year’s symposium, “Equity and Equality in Living: Exploring Housing Justice.” With the University’s new Law School Building set to open in time for the Fall 2025 term, organizers look forward to welcoming more guests.
“We hope for many years of collaborating on such notable events, and we are eager to see the facilities that the school is building to hold larger crowds,” says Karl Randall, DSBA executive director. “With experiences like the symposium, they will be filled!”
“We want to do programming events that educate and motivate the community,” Professor Mozee says. “To see how well it was received and attended — all the positive feedback we received — there’s nowhere to go but up from here.”
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