2024 BILL OF RIGHTS DINNER

Thanks for your support of the Bill of Rights Dinner — ticket sales have closed for this event. If you have any questions, please call 617-848-8853.

We are excited to gather with ACLU supporters and champions from across the Commonwealth to celebrate the ACLU’s work fighting for reproductive freedom, racial justice, voting rights, LGBTQ equality, immigrants' rights, criminal law reform, freedom of expression, and freedom from surveillance.

For over 100 years, the ACLU has been our nation's guardian of liberty, working in courts, legislatures, and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties that the Constitution and the laws of the United States guarantee everyone in this country.

For questions, please email aclumdinner@aeevents.com.

Speaker

Yasmin Cader

Yasmin Cader is a Deputy Legal Director and the Director of the Trone Center for Justice and Equality at the American Civil Liberties Union. The Trone Center encompasses the ACLU’s work on criminal and racial justice.

In her 30+-year career as a civil rights lawyer and public defender in Washington, D.C., New York, and Los Angeles, Yasmin has represented juveniles and adults facing misdemeanor and felony charges, including clients charged with capital offenses as well as domestic and international terrorism. She also worked as a staff attorney with the Employment Litigation Section of the Department of Justice and co-founded Cader Adams Trial Lawyers, a women-owned litigation boutique in Los Angeles. Yasmin began her career as a judicial law clerk to the Honorable Damon J. Keith of the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals.  She is a graduate of Howard University and Yale Law School.

Yasmin currently lives in Los Angeles and, in addition to her role at the ACLU, is a leader in several programs devoted to racial justice work on a national level.

Speaker

Cecillia Wang

Cecillia Wang is the Legal Director at the national American Civil Liberties Union and oversees the ACLU’s work on immigrants’ rights, voting rights, national security, human rights, and speech, privacy and technology. She is a past director of the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project and has taught immigration law courses as an adjunct lecturer at Stanford and Berkeley.

Cecillia’s notable ACLU cases include a Supreme Court argument in Nielsen v. Preap, concerning the interpretation of an immigration detention statute; successful federal appellate arguments in cases challenging President Trump’s ban on the entry of noncitizens from certain Muslim-majority countries (Fourth Circuit en banc), an Arizona state constitutional amendment barring pretrial release for criminal defendants based on immigration status (Ninth Circuit en banc), and Alabama’s HB 56 anti-immigrant law (Eleventh Circuit); and two trial victories in a case challenging racial profiling, illegal detentions, and civil contempt by the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office.

From 1998 to 2002, Cecillia was a trial attorney with the federal public defender office in the Southern District of New York. She later served on the federal indigent defense panel for the Northern District of California.

Cecillia is a 1995 graduate of the Yale Law School, where she was an articles editor for The Yale Law Journal. She clerked for Justice Harry A. Blackmun of the Supreme Court of the United States, working in the chambers of Justice Stephen G. Breyer, and Judge William A. Norris of the U.S. Court of Appeals of the Ninth Circuit. Cecillia graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1992 with an A.B. in English (with highest honors) and Biology and was valedictorian of her graduating class in the Department of English.

Honoree

Byron Rushing

Byron Rushing served in the Massachusetts House of Representatives from 1983 to 2018. He came to the House with a work background of community organizing and of Afro-American history.

In the legislature, Byron's priorities were human and civil rights, and the development of democracy; local human, economic and housing development; and housing and health care for all. He was the House Majority Whip. He was a leader of the Commonwealth's anti-apartheid efforts and a sponsor of the Commonwealth's twinning relationship with the Province of the Eastern Cape in South Africa. He was the chief sponsor of the Massachusetts Burma law.

He successfully sponsored legislation to create the Commission to develop a comprehensive plan to end homelessness in the Commonwealth. He sponsored the law for the over-the-counter sale of sterile needles and the law creating statewide guidelines for hospitals dealing with violence victims. He was a chief sponsor of legislation for substance abuse "treatment on demand,” He co-chaired the state's Health Disparities Council and was chief cosponsor of the law establishing a permanent disparities office in the Department of Public Health.

Byron was an original sponsor of the gay rights bill and the chief sponsor of the law to end discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in public schools. He was one of the leaders in the constitutional convention to maintain same sex marriage in Massachusetts. He successfully co-sponsored the transgender civil rights bills.

He was a spokesman against the restoration of the death penalty in Massachusetts. He lead the ongoing effort for size acceptance and anti-discrimination on the basis of height and weight; for the repeal of archaic laws; and for the revision of the Massachusetts state seal.

Entertainment

Boston Children's Chorus

Boston Children's Chorus's vibrant, jubilant, and powerful performances have established them as leading young artist in the city of Boston and beyond. Internationally recognized for their vibrant programming, passionate artistry, and ability to connect to audiences, Boston Children's Chorus showcases the talent and passion of the diverse young people of our city.

Named Boston's "Ambassadors of Harmony" by the Boston Globe, BCC presents over 50 performances per season in a wide range of public and private events.

In 2013, they were presented with the National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Award, distinguishing BCC as one of the top arts and humanities based programs in the nation; BCC accepted the award from First Lady Michelle Obama at the White House.

Liberty Sponsor

The Comedy Studio
Richard Ferrante
Don Glazer
JB Kittredge and Winand van Eeghen
Glenn and Faith Parker
Susan Whitehead

2024 Host Committee

Amy and Joshua Boger
Nina and David Bowman
Howard Cooper
Lolly Delli-Bovi and William Zucker
Ellen Paradise Fisher
Betty and Paul Francisco
Nicki Nichols Gamble
Taurean Green
Stanley N. Griffith and Ann E. Schauffler
Holly Gunner and Anne P. Chalmers
Brett Hale
Geraldine S. Hines
Shelley and Johnathan Issacson
Stephen Kay and Lisbeth Tarlow
Daniele Lantagne and Jeremy Brown
Becky and Mark Levin
Maria Manning
Suma Nair and Colin Dean
Sarah Patrick
Daniella and Kevin Prussia
Carol Rose and Tom Harrington
Ann Burks Sagan and Paul Sagan
Sandy Sedacca and Sherwood Ives
Norma and Ben Shapiro
Thomas Shapiro and Nadine Bonda
Ambassador John Shattuck and Ellen Hume
Sandra Susan Smith
Charlotte Streat
Bob Thomas and Polly Hoppin
Phil and Kate Villers
Lauren Weitzen
Douglass Williams
Aja Burell Wood
Harmony Wu

Arnie Reisman Freedom of Expression Fund

Learn about the Arnie Reisman Freedom of Expression Fund here.

2024 BILL OF RIGHTS DINNER

Speaker

Yasmin Cader

Speaker

Honoree

Byron Rushing

Entertainment

Boston Children's Chorus

Justice Sponsor

Liberty Sponsor

Constitution Sponsor

Freedom Sponsor

2024 Host Committee

Arnie Reisman Freedom of Expression Fund