January 27, 2010
CUNY LAW PROFESSOR JENNY RIVERA RECEIVES STATE
BAR’S KAY CRAWFORD MURRAY AWARD
Rivera noted for diversity efforts, legal
scholarship on Latina issues, and gender equity advocacy
NEW YORK—Jenny Rivera, Professor of Law at the City University
of New York School of Law, received the Kay Crawford Murray Award from
the New York State Bar Association on January 26 at the State
Bar’s Annual Meeting held at the Hilton New York in Manhattan.
Sponsored by the Committee on Women in the Law, the award honors an
attorney who works to enhance diversity in the legal profession and
whose efforts have advanced the professional development of women
attorneys.
The committee singled out Rivera for her extraordinary life-long
efforts to increase diversity in the legal profession and for her
renowned legal scholarship. As one of only 141 Hispanic/Latina female
law school professors in the United States, she has distinguished
herself with an established record of teaching excellence, through
incisive writing on the issues facing Latina women, and by guiding
minority attorneys to become law professionals and professors.
“Professor Jenny Rivera has devoted her career to developing
programs and policies that address the critical issues facing the Latina
community, including domestic violence, impeded access to health
services, and under-representation in the legal profession. She has
greatly increased public and professional awareness of these issues
through her outstanding scholarship, keen insights, and a marked
commitment to promoting diversity. She is helping to perpetuate
the proud legacy set by Kay Crawford Murray,” said Committee Chair
Taa R. Grays of New York (MetLife). “We are pleased to recognize
her work and notable efforts to improve the status of minorities and
women in their profession and communities.”
A Bronx resident, Rivera is the Founder and Director of CUNY Law
School's Center on Latino and Latina Rights and Equality (CLORE). CLORE
promotes law reform scholarship, public education, and litigation in
support of expanded civil rights, and issues impacting the Latino
community in the United States. She has been a faculty member at
CUNY Law since 1997, with a one-and a half-year hiatus (January 2007
– June 2008) when she served as Special Deputy Attorney General
for Civil Rights for New York State Attorney General Andrew M.
Cuomo. There she assisted in the development and implementation of
the Attorney General's civil rights agenda, supervised the Civil Rights
Bureau and organized and held statewide outreach sessions on civil
rights issues.
Rivera is the author of two studies on domestic violence services in
New York State for Latina abuse survivors, and numerous articles on
domestic violence against Latinas, Puerto Rico’s Domestic Violence
Prevention and Intervention Law, and the Violence Against Women Act.
A former Administrative Law Judge of the New York State Division of
Human Rights, Rivera is also a former member of the New York City
Commission on Human Rights. Early in her career as a junior
associate attorney for the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund
(PRLDEF) (1988 – 1992), she established the Latina Rights
Initiative. She later created and chaired the Advisory Committee to the
Latina Rights Initiative, where she helped design the Initiative’s
litigation, advocacy and outreach strategy. She previously served as a
law clerk to current U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
Rivera has also chaired the Hispanic National Bar Association New
York Region’s Law Professors Committee where she worked on
diversity issues and increasing the number of Latinos and Latinas who
apply for teaching positions. The Hispanic National Bar Association
recently appointed her to its Commission on Latinas in the Legal
Profession.
The award is named for past Committee on Women in the Law Chair Kay
Crawford Murray. During Ms. Murray’s tenure as chair of the
Committee on Women in the Law, she raised awareness of women’s
issues, spearheading a report that urged the Association to propose a
model policy for childbirth and parenting as a guideline for law
firms.
Past recipients include Kay Crawford Murray, retired general counsel
of the New York City Department of Juvenile Justice and Marissa C.
Wesely of New York (Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP).
Founded in 1876, the 77,000-member New York State Bar Association is
the official statewide organization of lawyers in New York and the
largest voluntary state bar association in the nation. The State
Bar’s programs and activities have continuously served the public
and improved the justice system for more than 130 years.
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