17 – 18 September 2025
San Francisco State University has a proud tradition of organizing conferences for Constitution and Citizenship Day, a national holiday that commemorates the signing of the U.S. Constitution in 1787. The 2024 conference provides multiple opportunities to reflect critically on the past, present, and future of constitutional rights, freedoms, citizenship, democracy, equality, and justice.
CALL FOR PAPERS, PRESENTATIONS, AND PANELS
This is an open call for papers, presentations, panels, roundtables, teach-ins, and workshops for “Rights and Wrongs: A Constitution and Citizenship Day Conference” at San Francisco State University. The 2025 event will take place on Wednesday and Thursday, 17 – 18 September. The conference provides opportunities to gather, teach, and learn with colleagues, collaborators, and comrades, along with activists, advocates, students, and community members from SFSU, the Bay Area, and elsewhere.
We welcome proposals on multiple topics related to rights, wrongs, constitutional law, legal citizenship, and social change. This year we are especially interested in presentations related to the upcoming 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, the conflicts about U.S. history that have arisen during 2025, and the federal government’s new approaches to history education, historical commemoration, and public history. As in past years, we encourage proposals related to academic freedom, academic labor, campus free speech, educational censorship, faculty and student rights, and university initiatives related to diversity, equity, and inclusion. We also hope to see coverage of civil service law, electoral politics, executive orders, legislative redistricting, presidential immunity, presidential powers, the Supreme Court, and voting rights. More generally, we are interested in all topics that might help us deepen our understanding of today’s debates and discussions about constitutional rights and wrongs.
Contact
For further information, contact conference coordinator Marc Stein at marcs@sfsu.edu.
Past Sponsors: College of Liberal and Creative Arts, History Department, History Students Association, and Jamie and Phyllis Pasker Chair in U.S. History
Proposals (maximum 250 words) should be submitted by 13 June 2025 to marcs@sfsu.edu. We welcome individual submissions but prefer proposals for full sessions with multiple presenters. Most sessions will be scheduled for 75-minute time blocks to align with SFSU class schedules; this means that two 20-minute presentations, three 15-minute presentations, or four 10-minute presentations often work best; we can supply chairs/moderators on request. We ask that all presenters plan to attend more than just their own session. Please submit short vitas/resumes for all participants.
Accessibility
The conference sponsors are the College of Liberal & Creative Arts, the History Department, the History Students Association, and the Jamie and Phyllis Pasker Chair in U.S. History. The Rights and Wrongs conference welcomes persons with disabilities and will provide reasonable accommodations upon request. SFSU students, faculty, and staff with disabilities who need reasonable accommodations are encouraged to contact the Disability Programs and Resource Center (DPRC), which is available to facilitate the reasonable accommodations process. The DPRC is located in the Student Service Building and can be reached by telephone (voice/415-338-2472, video phone/415-335-7210) or by email (dprc@sfsu.edu). Others who need reasonable accommodations for this event can contact Marc Stein at marcs@sfsu.edu as soon as possible so the request can be reviewed.
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