On April 1, NYU Law’s Law Alumni of Color Association (LACA) honored the achievements of alumni and the Law School’s students of color at the LACA Spring Dinner. The annual event, held this year at Cipriani 25 Broadway, was celebrated remotely last year due to the constraints of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Welcome home,” said Rafiq Kalam Id-Din II ’00, president of LACA, to the hundreds of attendees seated for dinner, who included alumni, current and prospective students, faculty, and other members of the LACA community.
Watch a slideshow of photographs from the LACA Spring Dinner:
The evening’s theme was “Aspire: Lift as We Climb.” Kalam Id-Din described this concept as a way to solidify the bonds of community by being willing to both offer and receive help at any stage in one’s career path. The event began with a tribute to the late civil rights activist and longtime NYU Law professor Derrick Bell and the presentation of three student scholarships—some given in Bell’s honor.
LACA also recognized three alumni for their contributions to the legal profession and the world at large with the Distinguished Alumni Achievement Award: Shawn Wooden ’97, Connecticut’s state treasurer; Tana Lin ’91, US district judge for the Western District of Washington; and Priti Radha Krishtel ’02, co-founder and co-executive director of the Initiative for Medicines, Access, and Knowledge, a nonprofit that seeks to make medical systems more equitable.
The night concluded with the presentation of a special LACA President’s Distinguished Leadership Award to outgoing dean Trevor Morrison, and a keynote address by Richard Buery Jr., chief executive officer of the anti-poverty nonprofit, the Robin Hood Foundation. “We are greater than our obstacles,” said Buery in his address. “And I believe the key to overcoming those obstacles is community.... It is the classmates and colleagues who you meet in places like NYU Law. These are the people that you can count on to lift us up.”
Posted May 25, 2022.