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The SSSP Addresses Social Justice Issues at its Annual Meeting

At its 59th annual meeting in San Francisco, August 7-9, 2009, the SSSP approved four resolutions and a letter on a death penalty case. The first resolution was an expression of gratitude to the many individuals whose work made the program possible and maintained the organization’s vitality. A second resolution expressed support for the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA); bipartisan legislation that, if passed, will give employees the right to unionize either through majority sign-up or secret ballot, provide for first contract mediation and arbitration, and establish meaningful penalties when employers violate workers’ rights. The added benefit of this legislation is that it should help to rebuild the middle class and thereby invigorate an ailing economy. The Administrative Office will send a copy of the resolution to the President of the United States and all members of Congress. A third resolution directs the SSSP to permit the use of gender neutral pronouns in its publications and to call on publishers, editors, educators, and relevant institutional agents to (1) accept as submitted gender-neutral pronouns in author’s written work and (2) to update their manuals to state that gender-neutral pronouns may be employed. The fourth resolution instructs the Administrative Office to send a letter to UN Ambassador Susan Rice, urging the United States to call on the Security Council to investigate human rights violations by Burma’s military regime against its own citizens and to propose a global ban on weapons sales to Burma’s military regime. The final action was approval of a letter to Georgia’s Chatham’s District Attorney, concerning the case of Troy Davis, who was convicted in 1991 for the murder of a police officer. Davis was convicted almost exclusively on the basis of eyewitness testimony. Since the trial, seven of the nine eyewitnesses have recanted. One of the remaining two is the individual Davis and others say committed the murder and the other is someone who initially told police that he could not identify the shooter, but two years later identified Davis as the shooter in the courtroom. Since the SSSP’s adoption of the letter, the Supreme Court, to virtually everyone’s surprise, sent the case back for review to a federal judge in Georgia. The SSSP letter simply asks the D.A. to do what he can to ensure that exculpatory evidence is provided to the presiding judge and if it is not, for him to reopen the case and to ensure that it is. The organization is not taking a position on Mr. Davis’s innocence or guilt, but rather on ensuring that he receives a fair hearing.