Second Riley Lecture to feature Kim Coco Iwamoto, 2013 Champion of Change honored by President Barack Obama
Alfred University’s Women’s and Gender Studies program next week will host the second speaker in the Riley Lecture Series: activist Kim Coco Iwamoto, a pioneer in the area of LGBTQ rights.
Alfred University’s Women’s and Gender Studies program next week will host the second speaker in the Riley Lecture Series: activist Kim Coco Iwamoto, a pioneer in the area of LGBTQ rights.
Iwamoto, recognized in 2013 by President Barack Obama as a Champion of Change for her advocacy in the area of public education, will be interviewed on the Zoom platform by Dr. Meredith Field, Assistant Professor of Sociology at Alfred University, at 5:30 pm Wednesday, April 6.
Raised in Hawaii, Iwamoto began working in the fashion industry, where she was terminated from a job in New York for being transgender. She subsequently enrolled in law school, committing herself to the expansion of civil rights laws. She began her legal career as a public interest attorney, coordinating free legal clinics in homeless shelters and community centers across the state. Then, in 2006, she was elected to Hawaii’s State Board of Education, as Hawaii became the first state in the nation to elect an openly Trans candidate to a statewide office. In 2018, she ran unsuccessfully for the position of lieutenant governor in Hawaii.
The Riley Lecture is named for Alfred University graduates Charles Riley ’35 and Elizabeth Hallenbeck Riley ’36, a local activist involved in women's rights issues. Their daughters, Pamela Riley Osborn ’62, Patricia A. Riley ’65, and Melissa Riley sponsor the lecture series in memory of their parents.
The Riley sisters’ gift is a completion of the memorial that Charles Riley had planned for his wife but had not completed before his death.