The Equal Justice Society is excited to announce that Alexandra J. Santa Ana will join us as Staff Attorney starting on March 15. Alex was most recently Youth Justice Staff Attorney at Bay Area Legal Aid, where she provided direct legal representation to young people involved in the dependency and delinquency systems or experiencing homelessness.
Professor Henry L. Hecht is donating $50,000 through The Henry L. Hecht Family Fund to help fund the new Staff Attorney position.
“We’re thrilled to have Alex join EJS as Staff Attorney. She will play a key role in furthering our litigation to fight the discriminatory discipline, transfer, and segregation of students of color and students with disabilities, essential work for us to dismantle the school-to-prison pipeline,” said Mona Tawatao, EJS Legal Director. “The life experience and skills Alex brings to EJS will also help advance our work on implicit bias and to challenge overt racism and structural racism harming Black people and people of color in higher education and the workplace.”
Before Bay Area Legal Aid, Alex was a Public Service Venture Fellow at the National Center for Youth Law focusing on the school-to-prison pipeline and access to education impact litigation and policy reform. Alex worked on cases addressing the inadequate educational opportunities students receive during periods of expulsion and the rights of youth to reenroll in school after returning from the juvenile justice system. At Youth Law, she teamed up with EJS attorneys on our lawsuit against Antioch Unified School District.
Alex earned her J.D. at Harvard Law School, where she served as Technical Editor for both the Harvard Journal on Racial and Ethnic Justice and the Harvard Journal of Law and Gender. She also organized Harvard Law’s first Latino Law Conference.
She held leadership positions in La Alianza, a student organization of Latinx and Latin American law students and students interested in issues affecting the Latinx community. Alex was also a founding member of Students for Inclusion, a group elevating the underrepresented voices at Harvard Law. Alex received her B.A. Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley.
Alex is admitted to the State Bar of California, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, and U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit Court.