Saturday, January 28, 2023
5 pm to 7 pm
Graciously hosted by
Janice and Ira Starr
65 Church Lane
Scarsdale, NY 10583
Our in-person winter social event returns! All are welcome to enjoy a fun and festive evening with good food and League friends.
Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization
Speakers: Rabia Muqaddam and Laurie Bertram Roberts
Wednesday, November 16, 2022
9:15 am to 11:45 am
Scarsdale Public Library, Scott Room
Event is free of charge and will be a morning coffee instead of a luncheon. Please RSVP to help us predict attendance.
Rabia Muqaddam and Laurie Bertram Roberts will be discussing their work and the impact of the recent Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization on women’s access to healthcare.
Muqaddam is a Senior Staff Attorney at the Center for Reproductive Rights, headquartered in New York, where she has worked since 2017. She is lead counsel in the challenges to the abortion bans and restrictions passed by the Oklahoma legislature in 2021 and 2022. She previously worked as a litigation associate at Dechert LLP. Muqaddam holds a J.D. from Cornell Law School, where she was a president of the Cornell Law Students for Reproductive Justice, an online editor for the Cornell Law Review, and a participant in the LGBT Clinical programs. She also holds a B.A. from Cornell University.
Laurie Bertram Roberts is the co-founder and Executive Director of Mississippi Reproductive Freedom Fund (MRFF), a reproductive justice organization based in Jackson, Mississippi. MRFF provides financial assistance and practical support to persons seeking abortions, as well as free emergency contraception and community based comprehensive sex education to mitigate governmental restrictions and economic limitations that adversely impact people of low income – and especially those who are Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC). Bertram Roberts is a writer and activist whose experience dates to the early 2000s with Head Start advocacy, parent organizing, and voter education, utilizing years of diverse leadership and activism to empower communities marginalized by their gender, race, poverty, disability, and/or sexuality.
Tuesday, October 11, 2022
7 pm via Zoom
Sponsored by LWV of Westchester:
Tuesday, October 25, 2022
7 pm via Zoom
Co-Sponsored by LWV of New Rochelle, LWV of Scarsdale, and LWV of White Plains with American Sign Language interpreters and closed captioning in several languages to be provided by Disability Rights New York:
Wednesday, October 26, 2022
5pm via Zoom
Co-Sponsored by LWV of Larchmont/Mamaroneck, LWV of New Rochelle, LWV of Northeast Westchester, LWV of Rye, Rye Brook & Port Chester, LWV of Scarsdale, and LWV of White Plains with American Sign Language interpreters and closed captioning in several languages to be provided by Disability Rights New York:
For additional details on the upcoming general election, view the November 2022 General Election Timeline and Ballot Information for Scarsdale Residents page on the LWVS website. Contact the LWVS Voter Service Chairs with questions.
Tuesday, October 11, 2022
7 pm via Zoom
Sponsored by LWV of Westchester:
Tuesday, October 25, 2022
7 pm via Zoom
Co-Sponsored by LWV of New Rochelle, LWV of Scarsdale, and LWV of White Plains with American Sign Language interpreters and closed captioning in several languages to be provided by Disability Rights New York:
Wednesday, October 26, 2022
5pm via Zoom
Co-Sponsored by LWV of Larchmont/Mamaroneck, LWV of New Rochelle, LWV of Northeast Westchester, LWV of Rye, Rye Brook & Port Chester, LWV of Scarsdale, and LWV of White Plains with American Sign Language interpreters and closed captioning in several languages to be provided by Disability Rights New York:
For additional details on the upcoming general election, view the November 2022 General Election Timeline and Ballot Information for Scarsdale Residents page on the LWVS website. Contact the LWVS Voter Service Chairs with questions.
Monday, September 19, 2022
9:30 am to 11 am
Outdoors under the dining tent on Spencer Place in Scarsdale Village
All current and prospective members are welcome for coffee and conversation to learn about the League of Women Voters of Scarsdale. Special guest Lauren Miller, counsel in the Brennan Center’s Democracy Program where she focuses on voting rights and elections, will speak on The January 6 Hearings and the Big Lie’s Ongoing Threats to our Democracy. Miller will discuss how false claims about the 2020 election have prompted the passage of anti-voter laws and mistrust in the electoral process.
Topic: The Future of Voting Rights: Current Battles and Where We Go from Here
Speaker: Jerika L. Richardson*
Friday, May 6, 2022
10:45 am** to 2 pm (please note: new start time)
Scarsdale Golf Club
Outdoor Terrace to the Right of the Main Entrance
Updated 5/5/22: Online luncheon ticket sales are now closed. Walk-ins are welcome but please RSVP to Anne Lyons in advance and bring cash or a check payable to League of Women Voters of Scarsdale in the sum of $55/ticket (write FFT luncheon in memo line along with the names of attendees). Credit cards are not accepted.
*Jerika L. Richardson is Senior Vice President for Equitable Justice & Strategic Initiatives at the National Urban League. She leads the organization’s advocacy, public education, and strategic work on civic engagement, police reform, criminal justice reform, and other justice related areas. Previously, Ms. Richardson was Deputy Executive Director and the Senior Advisor & Secretary to the Board for the nation’s largest independent police oversight agency, the New York City Civilian Complaint Review Board.
She has also served as Chief of Staff in the Office of the Counsel to the Mayor of New York City and Special Advisor to the Mayor for media relations, criminal justice, and public safety planning. Before working in City Hall, Ms. Richardson was the Senior Spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of New York and a Field Producer & Off-Air Reporter for ABC News. She holds a J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School and a B.A. in English from Spelman College.
Follow this link to view Annual Meeting Agenda.
The Agitators: Three Friends Who Fought for Abolition and Women’s Rights
Sunday, April 3, 2022
3 pm to 5 pm
Scarsdale Public Library
Please RSVP (requested for planning purposes)
In the 1850s, Harriet Tubman, strategically brilliant and uncannily prescient, rescued some seventy enslaved people from Maryland’s Eastern Shore and shepherded them north along the underground railroad. One of her regular stops was Auburn, New York, where she entrusted passengers to Martha Coffin Wright, a Quaker mother of seven, and Frances A. Seward, the wife of William H. Seward, who served over the years as governor, senator, and secretary of state under Abraham Lincoln. During the Civil War, Tubman worked for the Union Army in South Carolina as a nurse and spy, and took part in a spectacular river raid in which she helped to liberate 750 slaves from several rice plantations.
Wright, a “dangerous woman” in the eyes of her neighbors, worked side by side with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony to organize women’s rights and anti-slavery conventions across New York State, braving hecklers and mobs when she spoke. Frances Seward, the most conventional of the three friends, hid her radicalism in public, while privately acting as a political adviser to her husband, pressing him to persuade President Lincoln to move immediately on emancipation.
The Agitators opens in the 1820s, when Tubman is enslaved and Wright and Seward are young homemakers bound by law and tradition, and ends after the war. Many of the most prominent figures of the era—Lincoln, William H. Seward, Frederick Douglass, Daniel Webster, Charles Sumner, John Brown, William Lloyd Garrison—are seen through the discerning eyes of the protagonists. So are the most explosive political debates: about the civil rights of African Americans and women, about the enlistment of Black troops, and about opposing interpretations of the Constitution.
Through richly detailed letters from the time and exhaustive research, Wickenden traces the second American revolution these women fought to bring about, the toll it took on their families, and its lasting effects on the country. Riveting and profoundly relevant to our own time, The Agitators brings a vibrant, original voice to this transformative period in our history.
The paperback editions of The Agitators and of Nothing Daunted are available for purchase at Bronx River Books. For phone, email, and in-store purchases, mention LWVS to receive a 10% discount.
*Dorothy Wickenden is the author of Nothing Daunted and The Agitators and has been the executive editor of The New Yorker since January 1996. She also writes for the magazine and is the moderator of its weekly podcast The Political Scene. A former Nieman Fellow at Harvard, Wickenden was national affairs editor at Newsweek from 1993-1995, and before that was the longtime executive editor at The New Republic. She lives with her husband in Westchester, New York.
Topic: A Conversation with Khizr Khan*
Moderator: Linda Doucette-Ashman**
Sunday, January 30, 2022
8 pm to 9:30 pm via Zoom Webinar (please click on the link to register)
LWVS is pleased to welcome Khizr Khan for an informative discussion about his life experiences, his embracing of American democracy after immigrating, and his advocacy for the values embodied in the Constitution of the United States. The evening will be moderated by former LWVS president Linda Doucette-Ashman.
This online event will be taking the place of our annual in-person winter fundraiser. As a public service, the webinar will be free to attend. LWVS appreciates donations in any amount to support our mission of encouraging informed and active participation in government.
*Khizr Khan, founder of the Constitution Literacy and National Unity Project, is an advocate for religious freedom as a core element of human dignity. After immigrating to the United States in 1980, he attended Harvard Law School and obtained his LL.M degree. He is licensed to practice law before the Supreme Court of the United States, various Federal District Courts, Washington, DC, and New York State courts. In his law practice, he devotes a substantial amount of his time to providing legal services to veterans, men and women serving in uniform, and their families.
Khizr Khan is a Gold Star parent of U.S. Army Captain Humayun Khan. Capt. Humayun Khan was a University of Virginia graduate who was killed while serving in Iraq as he stopped an attack on his camp and saved the lives of scores of U.S. soldiers and Iraqi civilians. He was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart and Bronze Star with Valor. He was buried in Arlington National Cemetery Section 60 with full military honors.
Khizr Khan lives in Charlottesville, Virginia. He is author of three books:
Khan’s acclaimed memoir and his highly regarded young adult book about the U.S. Constitution are both available for purchase (paperback versions) with a 10% discount at Bronx River Books. Follow the links above to purchase online (discount already applied to online orders). For in-store purchases, mention LWVS to receive the 10% discount.
**Linda Doucette-Ashman served as co-president of the LWVS from 2017 to 2019, after having served for several years as a member of the board of directors. During her time on the LWVS board, she served as Voter Service Chair and worked on numerous issues across LWVS portfolios. She also served as a member of the Village Planning Board, Scarsdale High School PTA Board and the Greenacres Neighborhood Association Board.
Doucette-Ashman received her undergraduate degree in mathematics from Mount Holyoke College and her law degree from New England School of Law. She is an environmental attorney who left in-house corporate work to raise her children and serve the communities where she has lived.
She currently resides in the Pioneer Valley region of Massachusetts where she and her husband, Harvey, are building their new home. She has two sons, both SHS alums, one in North Carolina and one in Philadelphia.
Topic: A Conversation with Khizr Khan*
Moderator: Linda Doucette-Ashman**
Sunday, January 30, 2022
8 pm to 9:30 pm via Zoom Webinar (please click on the link to register)
LWVS is pleased to welcome Khizr Khan for an informative discussion about his life experiences, his embracing of American democracy after immigrating, and his advocacy for the values embodied in the Constitution of the United States. The evening will be moderated by former LWVS president Linda Doucette-Ashman.
This online event will be taking the place of our annual in-person winter fundraiser. As a public service, the webinar will be free to attend. LWVS appreciates donations in any amount to support our mission of encouraging informed and active participation in government.
*Khizr Khan, founder of the Constitution Literacy and National Unity Project, is an advocate for religious freedom as a core element of human dignity. After immigrating to the United States in 1980, he attended Harvard Law School and obtained his LL.M degree. He is licensed to practice law before the Supreme Court of the United States, various Federal District Courts, Washington, DC, and New York State courts. In his law practice, he devotes a substantial amount of his time to providing legal services to veterans, men and women serving in uniform, and their families.
Khizr Khan is a Gold Star parent of U.S. Army Captain Humayun Khan. Capt. Humayun Khan was a University of Virginia graduate who was killed while serving in Iraq as he stopped an attack on his camp and saved the lives of scores of U.S. soldiers and Iraqi civilians. He was posthumously awarded the Purple Heart and Bronze Star with Valor. He was buried in Arlington National Cemetery Section 60 with full military honors.
Khizr Khan lives in Charlottesville, Virginia. He is author of three books:
Khan’s acclaimed memoir and his highly regarded young adult book about the U.S. Constitution are both available for purchase (paperback versions) with a 10% discount at Bronx River Books. Follow the links above to purchase online (discount already applied to online orders). For in-store purchases, mention LWVS to receive the 10% discount.
**Linda Doucette-Ashman served as co-president of the LWVS from 2017 to 2019, after having served for several years as a member of the board of directors. During her time on the LWVS board, she served as Voter Service Chair and worked on numerous issues across LWVS portfolios. She also served as a member of the Village Planning Board, Scarsdale High School PTA Board and the Greenacres Neighborhood Association Board.
Doucette-Ashman received her undergraduate degree in mathematics from Mount Holyoke College and her law degree from New England School of Law. She is an environmental attorney who left in-house corporate work to raise her children and serve the communities where she has lived.
She currently resides in the Pioneer Valley region of Massachusetts where she and her husband, Harvey, are building their new home. She has two sons, both SHS alums, one in North Carolina and one in Philadelphia.
How the 2020 Census and Redistricting Will Shape Political Representation
Speaker: Thomas Wolf
Friday, November 5, 2021
11:45 am to 2 pm
Scarsdale Golf Club
Please note: All attendees must show proof of COVID-19 vaccination for admittance. This event will be held outside under the upper tented terrace with heaters.
PURCHASE FOOD FOR THOUGHT LUNCHEON TICKETS
Thomas (Tom) Wolf is Senior Counsel and Spitzer Fellow with the Brennan Center’s Democracy Program, where he leads the Center’s census project. An experienced constitutional litigator and strategist, Wolf advises civil rights groups, state and local governments, and others on legal strategy and policy relating to the census, redistricting, and other issues. During his time at the Brennan Center, he has organized the amicus briefing for several of the U.S. Supreme Court’s most significant democracy cases of the past decade and co-led the lawsuit that thwarted the Trump administration’s attempts to rush the 2020 Census. Wolf’s articles, op-eds, and commentary on the law and democracy issues have appeared in major media outlets nationwide and globally. He routinely speaks and lectures on law and policy at leading universities, law schools, and public policy schools.
Prior to joining the Brennan Center, Wolf was a member of the Supreme Court and Appellate Group at Mayer Brown LLP. He began his legal career as a clerk for Senior Judge Guido Calabresi of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Wolf received his JD from Yale Law School. He also holds advanced degrees in political thought and intellectual history from the University of Cambridge and urban development planning from the Bartlett Faculty of University College London, which he attended as a Marshall Scholar. He graduated summa cum laude with an AB in history from Harvard College.
Thursday, October 21, 2021
2 pm to 3 pm via Zoom
Co-Sponsored by LWVW and the Scarsdale Public Library
Facilitated by Alissa Baum, President of LWVS
How familiar are you with the redistricting process? Does your district’s map represent your locale’s Communities of Interest? Learn more about redistricting in Westchester County and New York State and what you can do to ensure fair mapping.
The League of Women Voters opposes partisan and racial gerrymandering because it distorts and undermines representative democracy by allowing officials to select their voters rather than voters to elect their officials.
This webinar is organized by the LWV of Westchester* and facilitated by LWVS in collaboration with the Scarsdale Public Library. Register by providing your name and email address on the Scarsdale Public Library program page for this event to receive the Zoom link.
*LWVW is a nonpartisan organization whose purpose is to promote informed and active participation in government. The League neither supports nor opposes candidates or political parties. The League is supported by public-spirited individuals, businesses and organizations.
Thursday, September 23, 2021
9:30 am to 11 am
Outdoors under the dining tent on Spencer Place in Scarsdale Village
All current and prospective members are welcome for coffee and conversation to learn about the League of Women Voters of Scarsdale. Special guests Mayor Jane Veron, Deputy Mayor Justin Arest, and Trustee Karen Brew will discuss a variety of topics affecting Scarsdale Village, such as potential changes in the leaf collection program, the renovation of the Scarsdale Pool Complex, and issues related to the recently passed Marijuana Regulation and Taxation Act.
Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson
Thursday, April 15, 2021, at 7pm via Zoom
Meeting ID: 837 1875 0796
Passcode: 191004
Please RSVP to let us know you will be participating.
Joining us via Zoom will be Richard Westmoreland, retired Marine Corps Lieutenant Colonel and former F/A-18 pilot, mentioned in the book for his participation in the Confederate monument debate in New Orleans from 2015 to 2017 as a vocal proponent of removal. Before the murders in South Carolina brought national attention to the issue, Westmoreland had been writing to local government and media and appearing on local radio and television about the “historical lie” that Confederate monuments and street names perpetuated, calling them “an affront to the truth and an affront to decency.” Westmoreland will share his experience of speaking at the New Orleans City Council and the frightening aftermath.
Westchester: History of an Iconic Suburb
Sunday, March 7, 2021
3 pm via Zoom
Register to Attend the Webinar
Join us for a conversation with author Robert Marchant to hear about his new book, Westchester: History of an Iconic Suburb. This live virtual event will provide an informative and lively dialogue on Westchester’s fascinating and often surprising past, moderated by Jordan Copeland. Marchant’s book examines four centuries of development in Westchester, uncovering “a complex and often surprising narrative of slavery, anti-Semitism, immigration, Jim Crow, silent film stars, suffragettes, gangland violence, political riots, eccentric millionaires, industry and aviation, man-made disasters and assassinations.”
In honor of LWVS’s 100th year, this special program features an all-female panel of elected officials in a discussion to be moderated by LWVS member and immediate past president Janice Starr.
Sunday, January 24, 2021
7:00 pm to 8:30 pm via Zoom
Register to Attend the Webinar
Please use this form to Submit Questions for any of our speakers.
Meet our Panelists (links open to their professional bios):
Action Civics: Empowering Students to be Engaged in our Democracy
Featuring: DeNora Getachew*
Additional Panelists: Martin Mintz** (current New York Program Director of Generation Citizen), John Harrison (SHS Social Studies Department Chair), Steven Goodman (SMS Social Studies Teacher), and student representatives from the SHS School Government
Thursday, November 12, 2020
7:30 pm to 9 pm via Zoom
Register to Attend the Webinar
In this moment, when citizen and voter participation in our democracy is essential, how may we best equip our youth to carry that awareness through their lives? Learn how experiential civics education can enable and prepare our students with the skills, knowledge, and dispositions for lifelong civic participation in our 21st century democracy.
Educating and empowering youth about how democracy works is vital to maintaining a strong, inclusive democracy, and the League of Women Voters supports programs that provide students with the information, motivation, and skills to become informed voters and engaged citizens.
LWVS 