In 2020, WSRC Board Members Puja Kapai and Kelley Loper joined the leadership team of the The Berkeley Center on Comparative Equality and Anti-Discrimination Law (BCCE).
Convenor Puja Kapai was appointed as a Director to the Board, Co-Director of the COVID-19 Working Group and taught an online course on COVID-19 and Global Inequalities with 25 international faculty from 23 universities around the world. Board Member Kelley Loper was appointed Advisor to the Board of the BCCE.
The BCCE brings together hundreds of academics, advocates and activists from across the world to use comparative legal studies approaches to expand understandings inequality and discrimination, and to collaborate and share knowledge on how to meaningfully address these issues globally. Puja has taken up various leadership roles within the Centre’s work, including co-chairing the Centre’s working groups on Global Systemic Racism, and COVID-19 and Inequalities.
The working group on COVID-19 was formed in April 2020 to take up issues concerning COVID-19 and inequalities. It comprises of almost 200 members working in fields such as law, policy and healthcare, concerned with the repercussions of COVID-19 on equality. The Working Group has six hubs covering COVID-19 and inequalities related to gender, disabilities, race, intersectionality, and social and economic rights. Puja chairs the working group with Dr Laura Carlson of Stockholm University. Since its formation, the COVID-19 Working Group’s hubs have put together a number of flash conferences and workshops on how COVID-19 impacts vulnerable groups. These include “Raced AND erased by Covid-19 All at Once” and “Domestic Workers and How the COVID-19 Pandemic has Infringed Upon the Social and Economic Rights of”.