What's Democracy School? 

Democracy School teaches a paradigm shift, a dramatic new way of looking at our role as citizens in a democracy, and how to assert our inalienable rights as a sovereign people. 

Attendees explore the limits of conventional regulatory organizing and learn how to "reframe" single issues to confront the rights used by corporations to deny the rights of communities, people, and the earth.

Instructors

Dean Ritz is a an ethics educator, analyst and writer. His work on democratic activism and other social justice issues followed 15 years of strategic business consulting for technology companies large and small.

His articles on the subject of democracy and corporations appeared in the New College of California Law Review and Ethical Space. His upcoming article, Can Corporate Personhood be Socially Responsible? will be included in a forthcoming textbook, The Debate over Corporate Social Responsibility (eds. Cheney, May & Roper; Oxford University Press, 2006).

In addition to writing, Ritz co-produces the radio show "Ethically Speaking" currently airing on 44 stations.

Jane Anne Morris is a corporate anthropologist, activist and writer. Coming of age during the Vietnam war she has been active in a wide range of issues. A long, grass-roots effort in Texas against strip mining and burning lignite (a precursor to coal) became the basis for Not in my Backyard: The Handbook (Silvercat Publications, 1994). 

During a decade with the Program on Corporations Law & Democracy (POCLAD), Morris traveled widely through the United States giving talks, interviews and workshops on topics such as democracy and corporations, the domestic ‘free trade’ zone, and the history of corporate law. Half a dozen of her essays from that era (1995-2005) can be found in the anthology Defying Corporations, Defining Democracy (ed. Dean Ritz, Apex Press, 2001) and in Rachel’s Environmental Health News (#488, 489, 502, 806, 812, 813). Her work has also appeared in Earth Island Journal, Synthesis Regeneration, The Chronicle of Philanthropy and Earth First! Journal.

Morris currently lives in Madison, WI. Her forthcoming book, From Sea to Shining Sea: ‘Free Trade’ At Home explains the century old domestic ‘free trade’ zone within the United States. She is currently working on a book about the power of the United States Supreme Court to declare legislation unconstitutional.

Curriculum,  Materials & Preparation

Lectures cover the history of people's movements and corporate power, and the dramatic recent organizing in Pennsylvania by communities confronting agribusiness, sewage sludge, and quarry corporations. Included with Democracy School is a 190-page notebook of background reading material.

Background reading materials will be mailed or delivered 10 days before the workshop.  Participants should dedicate 4+ hours in advance of the workshop preparing for it (ideally, 30 minutes of reading a day for the 7 or 8 days preceding the workshop). The pre-reading is essential. 
Full curriculum

Registration, Class Times and Cost

Democracy School Background

Democracy School was created by the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) and Richard Grossman, co-founder of the Program on Corporations, Law, and Democracy (POCLAD). Democracy Schools were launched with five weekend sessions at Wilson College in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania in 2003.  The number of schools is growing rapidly. In 2005, Democracy Schools are being held in Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, the District of Columbia, Massachusetts, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Vermont, and Washington. 

For more information about the national program, go to National Democracy Schools.  

LINKS

• Help! I’ve Been Colonized

• Help! I’ve Been Colonized - Update 1

• Help! I’ve Been Colonized - Update 2

• FROST: What happened in Pennsylvania?

• Speeches by Richard Grossman and Thomas Linzey in Seattle February 2005

• PBS NOW Feature on the Friends of St. Thomas Township in Pennsylvania

• The Rights of (Corporate) Man by Knute Berger

• Is "Rights-Based" Organizing a Future Strategy for Environmental Activism? by Jeff Reifman