Arjun Gananathan, a 28-year-old Doctor of Law candidate at Harvard Law School in the United States, has earned the 2024 Ralph D.Gants Access to Justice Award.
The award honours a student who is committed to enhancing access to justice and equality.It was founded in 2021 to honor Ralph D. Gants, the late Chief Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court and a social justice crusader.
Arjun told Harvard Law Today that he was privileged to earn the award. “Chief Justice Gant’s work serves as a reminder that representation of the marginalised is the greatest honour of our profession.”
He stated his fondest memories were victories in court for clients of the CJI, a criminal defense clinic in Massachusetts that represents underprivileged or impoverished individuals.
He executed the example of his first court appearance, when the Commonwealth attempted to take his client, a single mother, from her young special-needs son for 90 days.He recounted another situation in which he was unexpectedly assigned to defend a juvenile client just 48 hours before a final exam.
“We overcame the prosecution’s bail revocation motions and had her released from detention until trial. These victories are significant to me because they protected someone’s freedom and kept families together,” he stated.
According to Harvard Law Today, Arjun is recognized “for his thoughtful and assertive leadership in the Youth Advocacy and Policy Lab and the Criminal Justice Institute (CJI).” He has demonstrated an unrelenting dedication to investigating and dissecting the criminal system through a lens of racial fairness.”
Arjun earned a psychology and linguistics degree from the University College of Los Angeles (UCLA).He has also done significant pro bono work as a member of the Harvard Prison Legal Assistance Project and the Mississippi Delta Project.
During his first year with the MDP, Arjun worked on the Economic Justice Project, a project that addressed the legacy of discrimination against black farmers in Mississippi.
Crisanne Hazen, a law lecturer and director of the Child Advocacy Clinic, stated that Arjun approaches everything “with a tremendously thoughtful and measured approach, an ability to see both sides of a complex problem, and a willingness to acknowledge his positionality and role in a system that disproportionately burdens black and brown people.”
Source : The Star, Harvard Law Today
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