Dean Johnson Appointed to California Law Academy Task Force

Dean Kevin R. Johnson has been appointed by the State Bar of California to the California Law Academy Strategic Task Force.  The group will bring together leaders in California's legal community who have shown a commitment to diversifying the legal profession in order to design ways to improve the educational success of at-risk students by exposing them to studies in the law. 

The task force will help implement a partnership between the State Bar and the California Department of Education that will create law-themed academies for students interested in entering career pathways in law.  The academies will be part of the California Partnership Academies program, which operates more than 470 academies in the state, primarily serving at-risk youth and students of color.  Currently, less than 10 of the academies focus on law-related careers.

California Supreme Court Justice Carlos Moreno, a co-chair of the task force and a frequent guest speaker at King Hall, addressed the group's first meeting in San Francisco on December 2, as did California Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye '84.

Kevin R. Johnson is Dean and Mabie-Apallas Professor of Public Interest Law and Chicana/o studies at UC Davis School of Law. He is an internationally recognized scholar in the fields of immigration law and policy, refugee law, and civil rights.