Florida Atlantic University’s Center for Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies and other local organizations will hold a Women’s Equality Day Celebration to commemorate the 92nd anniversary of women’s voting rights. The celebration will be held on Friday, August 24, from 8:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. in the Engineering Building on FAU’s Boca Raton campus, 777 Glades Road. The event is free and open to the public.
There will be a reception with elected officials and exhibitors at 8:30 a.m. and a panel discussion at 9:15 a.m. The keynote speaker for the panel is Susan Bucher, the Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections, and other panelists include Pam Goodman, former vice president of the League of Women Voters; Josephine Beoku-Betts, director of FAU Center for Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies; Candace Britt, FAU Honors Student in the Center for Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies; and Thomas Burns of Morgan Stanley Smith Barney.
“Elected officials have been focusing on women’s issues heavily over the last year,” said Beoku-Betts. “It is important now more than ever for women to exercise their right to vote. It is a right that was fought for so bravely 92 years ago, and a right which women in many countries still do not have.”
The event is hosted by FAU’s Center for Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies in the Dorothy F. Schmidt college of Arts and Letters and sponsored by Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, along with the Palm Beach County National Organization for Women, Planned Parenthood of South Florida and the Treasure Coast, Women’s Foundation of Palm Beach County, Presidential Women Center, Cleveland Clinic of Florida, Business Professional Women, League of Women Voters of Palm Beach County, National Women’s Political Caucus of Florida, and Body by Vi, 90 Day Challenge.
Attendees are encouraged to dress in white and purple as did the suffragists. For more information about the event, contact Meredith Ockman at Meredith.Ockman@gmail.com. For more information about the Center for Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies in FAU’s Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters or the master’s degree in women’s studies, email wsc@fau.edu or call 561-297-3865.