The Ohio Northern University Pettit College of Law’s 16th annual Diversity Forum will discuss “The New Age of Legal Diversity” in the Celebrezze Large Moot Court Room on Friday, Feb. 20, at 11 a.m.
The ONU Black Law Student Association (BLSA), in partnership with the ONU Student Bar Association, ONU Office of Multicultural Affairs, Black Student Union, the Student Bar Association and the Legal Association of Women, is sponsoring the event.
A panel of four speakers will discuss the topic with Dania Lofton serving as moderator. Ameerah McBride, director of equity and affirmative action at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, will focus on “Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 – Gender Specific.”
Nancy Sabol, ONU professor of law, will speak on employment discrimination, and Gary Daniels, a lawyer for the ACLU, will discuss “Post Online Used as Evidence in Crimes – Social Media and Free Speech.
Rounding out the panel is Stephanie Swiger, assistant director of enforcement at the NCAA, who will talk about “Sports Law: Diversity in Collegiate Athletics.”
McBride, who graduated from the ONU Pettit of Law in 2013, is an experienced EEO/ADA/Title IX administrator and serves as a policy expert on Title VI, Title VII, Title IX, and the ADA while managing the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh’s diversity and affirmative action programs.
Prior to joining the staff at UW-Oshkosh, McBride served as the investigator/deputy Title IX coordinator with Kansas State University-Office of Institutional Equity. Her previous experience also includes EEO/AA work with nonprofits, mental health social work with offender populations, child protective services investigations with Fulton County DFCS, and advocacy with the Barton Child Law and Policy Center of Emory University.
McBride has served on several committees within the community, including the Riley County Domestic Violence Task Force, Flint Hills Sexual Assault Task Force, and the Non-Stranger Sexual Assault Conference Planning Committee with the Kansas Coalition against Sexual and Domestic Violence.
Sabol has been director of academic support at ONU since 2001. She teaches Employment Discrimination, Legal Problem Solving & Analysis, and three courses that help third-year students prepare for the bar exam. As director, she oversees the comprehensive Academic Support program at ONU.
Sabol’s main focus is on working with students during their third year of law school and after they graduate to help prepare them to pass the bar examination. She practiced law in the Columbus Office of Jones Day 14 years before coming to ONU.
Sabol defended charges of violation of labor and employment laws before the National Labor Relations Board, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and the Ohio Civil Rights Commission for corporate clients, including Fairfield Medical Center, HealthSpan Inc., Northwest Medical Center and United Church Homes.
Daniels is the chief lobbyist of the ACLU of Ohio and works in the ACLU of Ohio regional office in Columbus, where he has lived since February 2008. Daniels has worked for the ACLU of Ohio for 15 years, from 1995-2000 and 2003-present. Before becoming chief lobbyist, he worked for the ACLU of Ohio in the position of litigation coordinator. During the time he lived in New York City, Daniels was the Cuba Travel Project coordinator for the Center for Constitutional Rights and later the media affairs coordinator for the National Coalition Against Censorship.
He currently serves on the boards of the Ohio Center for Law-Related Education, Community Shares of Mid Ohio, and Healthy Families Ohio. Daniels also is a two-time past board member for the Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless.
Swiger, a 2011 graduate of the ONU Pettit of Law, worked for the Ohio Attorney General’s Office as part of in-house counsel for the Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation.
She then took a position with Wilmer, Cutler, Pickering, Hale and Dorr LLP in Dayton, Ohio, where she worked on issues ranging from discovery to international corporate litigation matters. In April 2013, Swiger joined the NCAA as an assistant director of enforcement. She is responsible for investigating alleged violations of NCAA bylaws, beginning with the case strategy, conducting the complete investigation itself and, finally, presenting the enforcement department position to the NCAA Committee on Infractions.
She also serves as the enforcement department’s baseball development representative. In this role, she serves as a subject-matter expert on NCAA issues in the sport of baseball as well as an educational resource to the executives and teams in Major League Baseball, the wooden bat summer leagues, and collegiate coaches and players.
