Helen Hershkoff, Herbert M. and Svetlana Wachtell Professor of Constitutional Law and Civil Liberties, has received a Social Justice Maker award from the National Center for Law and Economic Justice (NCLEJ). The award recognizes individuals and organizations advocating for economic, racial, and disability-related justice. Hershkoff, who serves as co-director of NYU Law’s Arthur Garfield Hays Civil Liberties Program, was one of several recipients of Justice Maker awards who were honored at a September 21 event at New York City’s Chelsea Piers.
Founded in 1965, the NCLEJ is a nonprofit focused on advancing racial and economic justice through litigation, policy advocacy, and community organizing. In her remarks at the event, Hershkoff, who was introduced by NYC Department of Social Services Commissioner Steven Banks ’81, noted the NCLEJ’s connections to NYU Law, including the many NYU Law students and alumni who have interned or work currently for the center; her fellow Hays co-director and Professor of Clinical Law Deborah Archer, who sits on NCLEJ’s board of directors; and the Law School’s Project on Social Welfare Law, which was conducted in partnership with the NCLEJ.
“It’s a real gift to celebrate with the people in this room, amazing people who are working hard and not giving up,” Hershkoff said. “Not giving up on the idea of economic and racial justice. Not giving up on the power of law to repair a world broken by racism, by inequality, by violence. Not giving up on the values of dignity, of truth, and of respect.”
Hershkoff joined the NYU Law faculty in 1995 after serving as a staff attorney with the Legal Aid Society of New York and as an associate legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union. She is a co-author of both Getting By: Economic Rights and Legal Protections for People with Low Income (Oxford University Press, 2019) and the leading civil procedure casebook Civil Procedure: Cases and Materials. Her scholarship, focused on civil procedure and economic justice, has been published by the Harvard Law Review, Stanford Law Review, and NYU Law Review, among others.
Posted September 28, 2022.