Barbara Arnwine ’73, civil rights advocate and the first African American woman to serve as executive director of the non-profit Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, will give the commencement address on Sunday, May 14, at 3 p.m., on Elm Tree Lawn on the Scripps College campus. Student speaker Katy Lind, a dual major in dance and theater, and Scripps president Nancy Y. Bekavac will also address the Class of 2006.
Arnwine gained national recognition for her work on passage of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1991 and is a frequent speaker on the issues of civil rights, electoral barriers, and election reform. In 2004, she helped lead the nonpartisan Election Protection Coalition, which organized 8,000 lawyers throughout the nation to staff a national voting hotline and serve as poll monitors and mobile field attorneys in more than 28 states.
Entering Scripps College as a self-starting 11th grader who had studied Swahili and read Plato’s Republic in her free time, Arnwine majored in American Studies and was the only member of her class to proceed directly to law school after graduation. She was also the first in her family to attend college. Since graduating from Duke University Law School, she has been a tireless advocate for civil rights through litigation, public speaking, and electoral reform work.
In 1995, Arnwine organized the first national African American Women and the Law Conference. In recognition of her work, she was awarded the Distinguished Alumna Award from Scripps College in 1997. Serving as head of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, Barbara Arnwine has been involved in many high profile cases, including a recent lawsuit filed against FEMA for attempting to eject Hurricane Katrina survivors out of temporary hotel housing before establishing private housing sources. Through the Lawyers’ Committee, she has also worked to organize a National Blue Ribbon Commission on the Voting Rights Act to conduct regional hearings nationwide to assess continuing obstacles to the exercise of the political franchise.