Law Job Star

Chandra Bhatnagar to Receive Young Alumni Award

By Teresa Cajot On October 6, 2011 Chandra Bhatnagar will be presented with The Young Alumni Award in recognition of his many professional accomplishments since graduating from the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 2001. The Young Alumni Award, which is conferred by the Pennsylvania Law Alumni Society, was created to honor the exceptional achievements of alumnus or alumna who graduated within the last ten years.

Bhatnagar, now a senior staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Unions (ACLU) Human Rights Program, has spent the last decade advocating for the rights of immigrant populations. He has worked both internationally and domestically on a number of projects. In partnership with a major NGO in India, he was involved in the implementation of human rights standards to anti-child labor and bonded labor campaigns. Within the US, he worked with the Center for Constitutional Rights, where his primary focus was on immigrants rights and anti-police brutality issues. Additionally, Bhatnagar was the interim director of the Ella Baker Summer Intern Program, an internship created by the Center for Constitutional Rights in honor of the named civil rights hero. He also held the position of Assistant Director of Columbia Universitys, Bringing Human Rights Home Project, which was involved in efforts to better conditions for those being held following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Before joining the ACLU, Bhatnagar served as a staff attorney and a Skadden Fellow with the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund. In this position, he oversaw the South Asian Workers Project for Human Rights, which provided

support for workers from South Asia through various legal service offerings. In his current position with the ACLU, Bhatnagar is particularly concerned with the rights of low-wage immigrant workers, undocumented workers, and guest-workers. He has also been involved in promoting the utilization of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) within the US. Bhatnagar is the primary author of the 2009 report, The Persistence of Racial and Ethnic Profiling in the United States, which was given to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. He has also been featured as a guest commentator on CNN and referenced by other media sources. Bhatnager, who also holds an LLM in International Human Rights from Columbia Law School, will receive his award along with four other Pennsylvania Law School graduates. All are being honored for pro bono work, career accomplishments, and service.

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