Ramifications of the Ukraine Refugees.

 

Lithuanian-American Club of Central Illinois and The World Affairs Council of Central Illinois will be hosting the Associate Professor of Political Science Dr. Laura Dean as she talks about the ramifications of the refugee and displaced person crisis caused by the Russian attack on Ukraine. This free event will be held at the Lincoln Library on Saturday, March 26 at 2 pm.

The greatest humanitarian crisis since World War II has been created as millions of Ukraine civilians have been forced to flee for their lives. Mainly women, children, and the elder have flooded into the neighboring countries, whose resources have been stretched to the breaking point. The overburdened systems have led to uncertainty and confusion abound, making the refugees more vulnerable to human traffickers. Those, who remain behind in Ukraine, face shortages in the basic necessities--food, water, medical attention, and safe shelter. Bodies are buried in mass graves as indiscriminate bombing makes it too dangerous to retrieve them for proper burial.

Currently, Laura A. Dean is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Millikin University. From 2014-to 2016 she was an Assistant Professor at Clayton State University in Georgia. She graduated from the University of Kansas in 2014 with a Ph.D. in Political Science. She also has a Graduate Certificate in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (2013) and a Master of Arts in Political Science (2011) from the University of Kansas, a Master of Arts in International Studies focusing on Russian, East European, and Central Asian Studies (2006) from the University of Washington, and a Bachelor of Arts in World Politics (2003) from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire.

Dr. Dean researches gender and political issues focusing on public policy, migration, and gender-based violence in the former Soviet Union. Her research has been supported by the American Association of University Women, Social Science Research Council, Fulbright Program, Rotary Foundation, and appeared in The Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis, Human Rights Review, Journal of Baltic Studies, Journal Teorija in Praksa, and Femina Politica, the Feminist Journal of Political Science. In the summer of 2016, She was a Title VIII Summer Research Scholar at the Kennan Institute, part of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

Dr. Dean is the author of Diffusing Human Trafficking Policy in Eurasia forthcoming in 2020 from Policy Press at the University of Bristol and distributed by the University of Chicago Press in the US. She is the adviser of the Model United Nations Club, chair of the Fulbright Committee, and a member of the Gender Studies Committee and the International Programs and Policies Committee. She also serves as head of the Research Committee on the Central Illinois Human Trafficking Task Force and is a Regional Faculty Associate with the Russian, East European, and the Eurasian Center University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Dr. Laura Dean's website

Springfield Mayor Langfelder To Introduce Bill Clutter: Author/Co-Founder Illinois Innocence Project at Book Signing April 8, 2019

(March 2019, Springfield, IL) Former Springfield Alderman Bill Clutter will be holding a book signing event at the Lincoln Public Library Monday, April 8^th 326 S. Seventh street from 6pm-8 pm being hosted by Friends of Lincoln Library. Mayor Langfelder will be there in attendance to introduce Mr. Clutter, who served as Ward 1 Alderman from 1987-1991 under Mayor Ossie Langfelder.

Clutter, a private investigator, has penned an in-depth account of his investigation of a rare childhood cancer epidemic that occurred in Taylorville, Illinois after that community was exposed to coal tar by Central Illinois Public Service Company (CIPS) during a 1987 clean-up of hazardous waste.  His work on the CIPS case led to what became an important Illinois Supreme Court precedent that changed the way utility companies cleaned up abandoned coal tar sites in Illinois, requiring more protective cleanup standards. 

Manufactured Gas Plant (MGP) sites operated in nearly every city of the state before natural gas was discovered.   These facilities converted coal into gas.  Coal tar was a hazardous waste by-product of that process that contaminated the environment.

Clutter began his career by serving the Voting Rights Act lawsuit in 1984 on the City of Springfield.  The lawsuit was filed by leaders of the African-American community who alleged that the commission form of government, consisting of five commissioners who were elected city-wide, prevented Blacks from being represented on the city council.  After a federal judge ordered a new aldermanic government Clutter was elected to the city council in 1987, along with two African-Americans, Dr. Allan Woodson, and Frank McNeil, who was the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit.  Clutter will read from Chapter 4 “Democracy Comes to Abraham Lincoln’s Hometown,” which tells this history.

The book highlights the legal work of two local attorneys; Michael B. Metnick, who filed both the Voting Rights Act lawsuit and initiated the filing of a civil lawsuit against CIPS on behalf of the families whose children were afflicted with neuroblastoma; and civil trial lawyer Thomas F. Londrigan who took over the case and single-handily won a jury verdict against one of the largest law firms in the world, Jones Day, that now represents President Donald J. Trump in the Mueller investigation.

This book is also about more than that. “This is also a history lesson, a story of a different form of cancer that eats away at democracy, neo-fascism that seeks to set afire the legacy of Abraham Lincoln,” said Clutter.

 “I want this book to be the Uncle Tom's Cabin of our generation,” said Clutter. The book includes the story of how the most famous inaugural address ever delivered by an American president originated in Springfield, IL.  The words John F. Kennedy’s delivered “. . . ask not what your country can do for you-- ask what you can do for your country,” was borrowed from a speech Ralph Bradley, founder of the Illinois Farm Union, delivered to his members.

“Though this story occurred over three decades ago, what happened to Taylorville, Illinois, should be a lesson for this generation.  We need to protect the children by protecting the environment,” said Clutter. 

Bill Clutter was one of the co-founders of the Downstate Innocence Project, now known as the Illinois Innocence Project (IIP). Clutter now resides in Louisville, KY where he continues to investigate death penalty cases.  In 2013, Clutter founded a national organization called Investigating Innocence, a non-profit organization that investigates cases of inmates who seek to prove their innocence.  For more about Investigating Innocence visit

https://investigatinginnocence.org/

Proceeds from the sale of the book will benefit Investigating Innocence.

Coal Tar is available on Amazon, at Springfield's Prairie Archives, and soon at Springfield's Barnes and Noble. For more on the book Visit https://www.coaltarandneuroblastoma.com/

For more information please contact Rochelle Arjmand at 217-553-8115.

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