April 4, 2018 – Public Advocates and the Charles Houston Bar Association (CHBA) are proud to announce our third Arc of Justice Summer Fellow, Ariona Jean-Johnson! Awarded to law students who are committed to advancing the legal and policy priorities of low-income African American communities in the Bay Area, the fellowship is a collaboration between Public Advocates and CHBA to help increase the number of law students of color who pursue careers in public interest law. As the Arc of Justice fellow, Ariona will spend summer 2018 in our San Francisco office supporting the Education Equity Team, with dedicated support from CHBA.
As the first in her family to attend college, Ariona is dedicated to community accessibility and inclusion initiatives to support students of color graduate high school prepared for postsecondary success.
Before beginning law school, Ariona worked with the Upward Bound Program at Mills College in Oakland, where she assisted first-generation to college high school students throughout their academic journeys. At Upward Bound, Ariona used creative pedagogical techniques to teach and strengthen student writing. A strong believer in leveraging information to highlight social inequities, Ariona is passionate about social justice research; her focus area is on the racial identity development process of Black youth.
Ariona is currently a J.D. candidate at Howard University School of Law in Washington, D.C., where she is finishing her first year. Ariona graduated from Mills College in Oakland, where she received Bachelor of Arts degrees in Economics and Ethnic Studies. Born and raised in the Bay Area, Ariona loves sunshine and community festivals.
For more about Public Advocates, visit www.publicadvocates.org. For more about CHBA, visit www.charleshoustonbar.org.
Public Advocates is a nonprofit civil rights and advocacy organization dedicated to challenging the systemic causes of poverty and discrimination by strengthening community voices in public policy and achieving tangible legal victories advancing education, housing, and transit equity. Public Advocates focuses on strategic policy reform, collaboration with grassroots groups representing people with low income, people of color and immigrants, communication, and litigation, “making rights real” across California since 1971.
CHBA is a nonprofit organization comprised of lawyers, judges and law students throughout Northern California, and operates as an affiliate member of the National Bar Association and the California Association of Black Lawyers. CHBA is committed to working within the African American community to facilitate access to the justice system and to promote equal protection under the law, since 1955.
