The Equal Justice Society bids a sad farewell to our beloved colleague Chris Bridges who departs EJS to join the Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights as Program Counsel. We are so proud and excited for Chris even as we’re saddened by his departure but express our deepest thanks to him for his many contributions and accomplishments!
“Chris was such an important part of our team and he will always be part of the EJS family,” said EJS President Eva Paterson. “In addition to developing into a national expert on implicit bias, he was a valuable member of our legal team especially in our efforts to shut down the school-to-prison pipeline.”
Chris started with EJS in October 2014 as a Butler Koshland Fellow as part of a program identifying and mentoring the next generation of public service leaders. After his fellowship, he remained with us as a full-time member of the legal team focusing on school discipline and education issues as well as inequities within the criminal justice system.
He was a critical part of launching the National Implicit Bias Network and served as the network’s Program Manager. In that role, he was the lead implicit bias trainer for EJS, presenting more than 60 implicit bias trainings across the country to a variety of audiences including, lawyers, state and federal judges, parents, teachers, community organizations, mediators, medical professionals, construction workers, and more. Chris’s focus on the intersectionality of various mind sciences including implicit and explicit biases help ground his social and racial justice advocacy efforts to combat inequity.
Chris has authored and co-authored numerous pieces on implicit bias and appeared on CNN, ABC7, and other media outlets as an expert on implicit bias.
“Chris was invaluable in our case and community work addressing disproportionate suspensions of Black and Latinx students, in the Kern High School District, discrimination against students with disabilities and Black students with disabilities in Sacramento City Unified School District, and in our efforts to compel the Antioch Unified School District to address federal civil rights and disability rights violations against African American students,” said EJS Legal Director Mona Tawatao.
Chris is a graduate of Northeastern University School of Law. He also holds an MS in Criminal Justice from Michigan State University and a BS in Political Science and BA in Criminal Justice, both from North Carolina Central University. He began his legal career in 2012 with the ACLU of Northern California as the Racial Justice Project Fellow, where he worked on school-to-prison pipeline issues as a member of the Education Equity team.