Two EJS’ers received distinguished awards for exemplary work. Eva Paterson, EJS President, was the recipient of San Francisco Foundation’s Community Leadership Award for her passionate commitment to social justice with a profound local and national impact. The ceremony was held September 25 at the Herbst Theater, War Memorial Veterans Building, in San Francisco. Congratulations, Eva – it is richly deserved.

Board member James Brosnahan, senior partner at Morrison Foerster, LLP, on September 4 received the American Inns of Court 2007 Lewis Powell, Jr. Award for Professionalism and Ethics. The award was presented at the U.S. Supreme Court to “recognize a lifetime devoted to the highest standards of ethical practice and professionalism.” Jim Brosnahan is only the second recipient of the award who has not been a judge.

Keith Kamisugi was promoted to become our Director of Communications. Keith joined EJS in 2004 and has been responsible for our success in obtaining media coverage on a wide range of civil rights issues and for all of our electronic endeavors, from the website to our e-newsletters. Keith brings over a decade of experience working in the communications field. Prior to joining EJS, he served for four years on the staff of two Hawai'i governors, and previously consulted for the Minami Tamaki law firm, the Asian Law Caucus, the Coalition of Asian Pacific Americans PAC, the Asia American Journalists Association (AAJA) and UNITY: Journalists of Color.

Keith fills a role previously served by Elaine Elinson, who as a consultant directed our communications efforts since we founded EJS. Elaine is focusing on her book on the history of civil rights struggles in California, which is due out this Fall. Her contributions to EJS, the ACLU of Northern California, and dozens of other social justice organizations and projects has made her an incredible mentor to nonprofit communications staff throughout Northern California.

In other internal EJS staff news, our two spring-summer interns, Danielle Tizol and Nicole Medeiros, have completed their internship with us. Nicole was a graduate student at Stanford in sociology and provided detailed research for our unconscious bias projects, surveying experimental models and current neuro-science studies. Nicole now plans to attend UCLA Law School. Danielle managed an expanded research commitment to EJS on a wide variety of our projects through the summer and a part-time job at a law firm as well. She was instrumental in supporting an EJS chapter at USF Law School and will return for her third year. We are very appreciative of their work for EJS. We have an incredible group of EJS interns as alumni of the organization.

Our new Constance Baker Motley Fellow, Sara Jackson, started at EJS on October 1. Sara is a graduate of the dual Public Interest Law and Policy program at UCLA Law School. She previously interned at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, worked on researching admissions policies and practices to increase ethnic diversity under Dean Schill at UCLA Law School and participated in Juvenile Hall and Katrina legal clinics. Prior to law school, she worked for an international non-profit focused on HIV/AIDS education in southern Africa. She served as an extern to Hon. Richard Paez on the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals. We are very excited to have Sara join us.

Our 2006/7 Motley Fellow, Nicholas Espíritu, completed his fellowship with us on August 31 and moved quickly to Los Angeles as a new staff attorney at MALDEF. Nicolas, a brilliant researcher and writer, aspires to become a law school faculty member.

Last, but by no means least, we are delighted to report that Rico Oyola, our former associate director for projects and coalitions, has been accepted to a graduate MBA program. The internationally well-known school is located in Nice, France! Bon Voyage, Rico.