Take Action: No Chicago Bar Association conference in Jerusalem

Palestine Legal joins the National Lawyers Guild – Chicago, the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), and the Center for Constitutional Rights in urging the Chicago Bar Association, Catholic Lawyers Guild, and Hispanic Lawyers Association of Illinois to reconsider the location of a Continuing Legal Education conference in Jerusalem scheduled for the end of March.

The letter sent to the lawyers associations states:

“As fellow attorneys and members of the bar, we have taken an oath to uphold our profession’s highest ideals. At the core of these ideals is the belief that no person or group should be subjected to differential treatment on the basis of their immutable characteristics….It is unacceptable for the Chicago Bar Association, Catholic Lawyers Guild and Hispanic Lawyers Association of Illinois to hold a conference in a location over which Israel claims sovereignty, given that Israel engages in systemic human rights and international law violations, is founded on principles of inequality and discrimination against the indigenous Palestinian population, and actively discriminates on the basis of racial, religious and national origin at its borders, effectively preventing Arab, Muslim, Palestinian and other members of the Chicago Bar from attending.”

Read the full letter here.

Take Action: Sign the petition for the CLE to be moved from Jerusalem here.

Contact information for the respective lawyers associations is below:

Chicago Bar Association:  info@chicagobar.org

Catholic Lawyers Guild of Chicago: admin@clgchicago.org

Hispanic Lawyers Association of Illinois: communications@hlai.org