About this Event
Join the Vermont Council on World Affairs as we host career diplomat Elizabeth Shackelford to discuss her recent book, “The Dissent Channel," in which she details challenges and shortcomings in our foreign policy that long predated the current administration. In this session we will delve into the events that inspired Elizabeth to resign from the State Department and write this book. Elizabeth will share her firsthand account of what it was like to be a diplomat at a pivotal moment in U.S. history and the hopes she has for a better foreign policy in the future.
About the Book
A description of The Dissent Channel from its publisher, Public Affairs:
In 2017, Elizabeth Shackelford wrote a pointed resignation letter to her then boss, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. She had watched as the State Department was gutted, and now she urged him to stem the bleeding by showing leadership and commitment to his diplomats and the country. If he couldn't do that, she said, "I humbly recommend that you follow me out the door."
With that, she sat down to write her story and share an urgent message.
In The Dissent Channel, former diplomat Elizabeth Shackelford shows that this is not a new problem. Her experience in 2013 during the precarious rise and devastating fall of the world's newest country, South Sudan, exposes a foreign policy driven more by inertia than principles, to suit short-term political needs over long-term strategies.
Through her story, Shackelford makes policy and politics come alive. And in navigating both American bureaucracy and the fraught history and present of South Sudan, she conveys an urgent message about the devolving state of US foreign policy.
Elizabeth Shackelford
Author
Elizabeth Shackelford was a career diplomat in the U.S. State Department until December 2017, when she resigned in protest of the Trump administration. During her tenure with the Foreign Service, Shackelford served in the U.S. embassies in Warsaw, Poland, South Sudan, Somalia, and Washington, D.C. For her work in South Sudan during the outbreak of civil war, Shackelford received the Barbara Watson Award for Consular Excellence, the State Department’s highest honor for consular work.
Her resignation letter to Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, first shared by Foreign Policy, went viral. Since her departure, Shackelford has continued to raise awareness about the consequences of our troubled diplomacy in the press, with academic and community groups, and through other public commentary.
As an independent consultant, Shackelford focuses on human rights advocacy, conflict mitigation, political affairs, and democratic processes. Born and raised in Mississippi, she now lives in Rochester, VT.
Moderated by Joyce Davis
President, World Affairs Council of Harrisburg
Joyce Davis is the president of the World Affairs Council of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, an affiliate of the World Affairs Councils of America. She is also a media consultant.
She was the senior manager of Radio Farda, U.S. international broadcasting's service into Iran. She was also former deputy foreign editor for Knight Ridder Newspapers.
Prior to her work at Knight Ridder, Ms. Davis served as foreign editor and director of news staffing at National Public Radio — as well as an on-air reporter, doing special reports on the Middle East and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
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Event Format: Webinar
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