Attorney Lisa Holder of Los Angeles has joined the Equal Justice Society legal team to assist us with our lawsuit on behalf of Latino and African American students against the Kern High School District (California) and other parties.
Lisa is helping us with depositions of police officers stationed at public schools within the Kern High School District. She is assisting us with digesting thousands of pages of discovery and assessing what evidence we have, and what we need to further to prove the discrimination.
Her work will help flesh out our arguments that incorporate a modern and more sophisticated approach to proving discrimination by employing social science research and expert testimony that explains racial disproportionality and the existence of a racially hostile educational environment through mind science concepts such as implicit bias and racial anxiety. This Kern High School District case is part of EJS’s long-term effort to dismantle the Intent Standard that is applied to 14th Amendment Equal Protection Claims.
Lisa Holder began her career as a criminal trial attorney in Los Angeles in 2000. For five years, she provided skillful and effective representation to hundreds of individuals in a wide range of criminal matters. She expanded her practice to include civil litigation in 2005, developing expertise in cases involving employment discrimination, police brutality, and international human rights abuses.
Lisa is a nationally recognized, award-winning trial attorney who was selected to the Super Lawyers Rising Stars list for four consecutive years. She has served as an Open Society Institute Post-Graduate Fellow, and as a Soros Justice Fellow and Root-Tilden Scholar at New York University.
She is a member of the California bar, the National Lawyers Guild, and the California Employment Lawyers Association, served on the ACLU Southern California board of directors, and is currently Vice President of the board of directors for the Child Care Law Center. Lisa is also an adjunct professor at Occidental College where she teaches pre-law classes. She graduated from New York University School of Law in 2000 after obtaining a Bachelor of Arts degree from Wesleyan University.
EJS is co-counsel in the Kern High School District lawsuit along with MALDEF, California Rural Legal Assistance, Inc., Greater Bakersfield Legal Assistance, Inc., and the law firm of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich and Rosati The plaintiffs in this lawsuit include parents and students enrolled in the Kern High School District, taxpayer plaintiff Lori de León, and community organizations Dolores Huerta Foundation, National Brotherhood Association, and Faith in Action Kern County.