Changemakers – Fordham Now

Anthony Martinez Is Bringing Bronxites to the River

Adam Kaufman — Mon, 16 Dec 2024 19:29:25 +0000

As a lifelong Bronxite, Anthony Martinez always knew that the Bronx River was there, spanning 23 miles through the borough from its source in Westchester County. But growing up, he associated it more with the Bronx River Parkway—and the cars that frequently had to be dredged from the water—than with recreation and wildlife.

Today, as the administrator for the parkland along the Bronx portion of the river, Martinez oversees a vibrant collection of green space that offers everything from canoe tours to dolphin sightings.

As a political science major at Fordham, Martinez dreamed of a career in politics. He interviewed with New York City Council member Phil Reed after graduating in 1996, and Reed passed his resume along to Tim Tompkins, who had recently founded Partnerships for Parks—a nonprofit dedicated to connecting the city’s communities with their public parks through volunteering opportunities.

Martinez worked for the organization for 17 years, many of which were spent as an outreach coordinator for Bronx parks that he says were neglected over the years. “It was an opportunity to give people the ability to fight for change in their neighborhood,” he said.

After a period working in the Parks Department’s personnel division, Martinez landed his current job. He manages a staff of city employees and partners with the nonprofit Bronx River Alliance to help restore and protect the river, and to engage the community in activities centered around the water.

“You have this unique feature running through the Bronx that a lot of people don’t think about,” he said. “I see myself in the role of connecting people to the river and helping them navigate the system—showing what they can contribute and how they can also benefit from it.”

And his message for those who haven’t visited the Bronx River?

“Take advantage of this natural resource. And once you do, spread the word and let people know that it’s here and experience all it has to offer.”

A decade ago, Fordham officially became a “changemaker campus.” But the changemaking impulse has been at the heart of a Fordham education for generations. Read more about other Fordham changemakers.

Danielle Citron Is Fighting for Our Cyber Civil Rights

Franco Giacomarra — Mon, 16 Dec 2024 17:44:44 +0000

When Danielle K. Citron published the article “Cyber Civil Rights” in the Boston University Law Review in 2009, some of her peers were less than supportive.

“People were like, ‘You’re making a mountain out of a molehill. Relax. The internet needs to be free,’” said the 1994 Fordham Law School grad.

But the article changed the trajectory of Citron’s career. Her groundbreaking scholarship and advocacy on issues involving intimate privacy and online abuse are recognized internationally for their vital importance to an evolving understanding of ethics in the digital age. She earned a MacArthur Fellowship (aka “genius grant”) five years ago, and today she’s a distinguished professor of law at the University of Virginia.

“I was accused of wanting to kill free speech,” Citron said. “But I stuck to my guns. This is important.”

In a world where lawmaking lags behind the rapidly accelerating speed of technology, Citron is aiming to close that gap. She focuses on finding legal solutions to a wide array of online abuses, from cyberstalking and harassment to harmful deepfakes—digitally manipulated videos and images that are becoming increasingly indiscernible from reality. Threats like these disproportionately affect women and minorities, she said, making these issues “the civil rights cause of our time.”

“That’s the worst—the everyday person who’s targeted. They shut down their LinkedIn, Facebook, X accounts; they literally just go offline,” she said. “When you chase a woman offline, she cannot participate [in society].”

Since 2013, Citron has been vice president of the nonprofit Cyber Civil Rights Initiative. She has published two acclaimed books, including The Fight for Privacy: Protecting Dignity, Identity, and Love in the Digital Age (2022), and spent more than a decade working with law enforcement, legislators, and large tech companies to create reforms that give recourse to people who are targeted online.

Most recently, Citron partnered with U.S. Rep. Jake Auchincloss to draft a bill that would reform Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act—a law that protects platforms from liability for harmful or false content they host. The proposal includes stricter regulations against digital forgeries, cyber stalking, and intimate privacy violations.

For Citron, the through line across her career is one that was strengthened during her time at Fordham, both as a student and a professor of the law.

“The work that I do is on behalf of the vulnerable,” she said. “That is so consistent with the Fordham mission.”

How Dr. Suzanne Lagarde Is Expanding Access to Quality Health Care

Kelly Kultys — Mon, 16 Dec 2024 16:24:49 +0000

Medicine is a right, not a privilege.

That belief has been at the heart of Dr. Suzanne Lagarde’s career for decades. It led her to study medicine at Cornell University after graduating from Fordham in 1971. It led her to become a gastroenterologist. And it led her to leave her own practice to become CEO of Fair Haven Community Health Care, a federally qualified health center based in New Haven, Connecticut, that has about 34,000 patient visits each year, according to Lagarde.

“Caring for patients is really first and foremost,” she said. “What makes medicine really special is that ability to improve someone’s life—you make somebody physically feel better, but it’s so much more than that.”

When she was named to lead Fair Haven in 2014, the nonprofit had only two days of cash on hand. Today, it’s expanding to meet the needs of the community with a new facility under construction that will feature 26 exam rooms, a pharmacy, and new behavioral health and addiction treatment spaces. In addition, during her tenure, the staff has grown from 150 to more than 300, and the center has expanded from working in four schools to 12 schools.

In late October, Dr. Suzanne Lagarde visited the Fair Haven health care facility under construction. It’s expected to open in 2025.

Lagarde stressed the importance of centers like hers in caring for the most vulnerable populations, including those who are undocumented and those who don’t have access to insurance or the ability to pay for care.

“There are roughly 1,400 [federally qualified] health centers in the country—we are the safety net,” she said. “We are the largest primary care practice in the entire country, and we provide care with better quality outcomes … much more cost-effectively.”

In recent years, Lagarde has shifted her focus from seeing patients to advocating for them and overseeing the center’s work. She cited recent policy changes at the state level that allow undocumented children under the age of 15 to access Medicaid, something she and members of the center had been fighting to make happen for years.

“It’s looking at medicine much more holistically,” she said, “not just looking at it as, ‘I take care of your cough, your belly pain, your what have you,’ but I’m taking care of a population.”