May 2, 2024 | 6pm | Zoom
Join us for a conversation between Fay Stetz-Waters, Director of Civil Rights and Social Justice for the Oregon Department of Justice, and Randall Blazak, chair of the Oregon Coalition Against Hate Crimes. The two will discuss the history and current state of hate crimes in Oregon and what we can do to combat them. This program is part of The Burned Piano Project: Making Music Amidst the Noise of Hate.
Randall Blazak’s scholarship on hate crimes and hate groups has made him a regular commentator in media outlets from NPR and CNN to BBC and Al Jazeera. Blazak earned his PhD at Emory University in 1995 after completing an extensive field study of racist skinheads that included undercover observations and interviews across the world. He became a tenured sociology professor at Portland State University and currently teaches sociology at the University of Oregon. His work has taken him from classrooms to criminal trials. His research has been published in academic journals, books and in the mainstream press. His co-authored book, Teenage Renegades, Suburban Outlaws Wadsworth, 2001) and his edited volume, Hate Offenders (Praeger, 2009) have been widely adopted. 
Fay Stetz-Waters is the Civil Rights and Social Justice Director for the Oregon Department of Justice. As the Director of Civil Rights and Social Justice, she is committed to increasing the Department’s impact on civil rights issues affecting marginalized and vulnerable Oregonians.
Fay has been a strong advocate for justice her whole life. She enlisted in the United States Marine Corps at age 17, where she worked as a field radio operator. While working as a 911 dispatcher at night, Fay earned a bachelor’s degree in history and graduated with honors from Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut. She attended Lewis and Clark Law School, where she wrote on constitutional issues like marriage equality, transgender rights, and crime victim’s rights.
She has also worked as an Administrative Law Judge for the Employment Department, a Hearings Officer for the Parole Board, an Equity Associate at Oregon State University, and as a Circuit Court Judge in Linn County. Fay likes writing, studying history, gardening, attending summer concerts, and spending time with her wife Karelia and their dog Willa.