Civil rights scholars in the United States never lack new, wide-ranging social justice issues and cases to study.
UNC School of Law Assistant Professor Catherine Kim focuses on the role that administrative agencies and courts have in social justice reform, especially for communities of immigrants and people of color.
For her scholarly achievements, Kim has received the Eric K. Yamamoto Emerging Scholar Award, given annually to junior scholars by the Conference of Asian Pacific American Law Faculty (CAPALF). She was presented the award at CAPALF’s national conference, held in April at the University of California-Davis. CAPALF members nominate award recipients.
Yamamoto, who teaches at the William S. Richardson School of Law at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, is known for his work in civil rights, civil procedure and social justice reform. He was on the legal team that worked to overturn the conviction of Fred Korematsu, who challenged the constitutionality of the World War II internment of Japanese Americans.
At UNC, Kim teaches Immigration & Citizenship Law, Civil Procedure, Administrative Law, and Civil Rights Law. Previously, she litigated civil rights cases with the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation’s National Legal Department, focusing on racial justice and education cases.
“My scholarship has examined doctrinal shifts diminishing the ability of federal courts to remedy systemic civil rights violations. More recently, I have focused on the potential for executive-branch actors to address these issues,” Kim says. “For example, I have analyzed the role of administrative agencies in protecting immigrant interests, as well as the role of the president in combating anti-discrimination.
“Through my scholarship, I seek to identify the potential for new and emerging mechanisms of civil rights reform.”
-May 3, 2016