TIME ‘The Closers’ List of Black Leaders Recognizes EJS President Lisa Holder
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Lisa Holder is President of the Oakland, Calif.-based Equal Justice Society. Known for her groundbreaking appointment as a member of the California Reparations Task Force and more than 20 years of experience as a civil rights litigator and scholar, Lisa has made EJS a leader and premier coalition partner in the reparations movement in California and nationally. Under Ms. Holder’s leadership, EJS continues to build its dynamic civil rights practice to dismantle discriminatory school discipline and the school-to-prison pipeline, create a just and equitable legal system, promote and protect Black women’s health, and combat white supremacy and the extremist forces that threaten the multiracial democracy for which we all should strive. TIME selected her for its 2025 ‘The Closers’ list of 25 Black leaders working to end inequality. Ms. Holder is a nationally recognized, award-winning trial attorney specializing in equal protection, education equity, employment discrimination, constitutional policing, and international human rights law. In 2019, she drafted AB 241 and 242, the laws that now require all judges, attorneys, court staff, and health professionals to undertake continuing education on bias elimination. In 2020, she served on the steering committee for the Proposition 16 campaign to repeal California’s ban on affirmative action. In 2021, Ms. Holder was among the principal attorneys who litigated the groundbreaking case that eliminated the use of SAT/ACT in California public higher education and ushered in the current test-free admissions in all University of California and California State University schools. Ms. Holder received her Bachelor of Arts degree from Wesleyan University and her JD from New York University School of Law where she was a distinguished Root-Tilden Scholar.
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Lisa Holder is President of the Equal Justice Society, the Oakland, Calif.-based nonprofit transforming the nation’s consciousness on race through law, social science, and the arts. Lisa succeeded Eva Paterson who retired on August 31, 2022.
Known for her groundbreaking appointment as a member of the California Reparations Task Force and more than 20 years of experience as a civil rights litigator and scholar, Lisa has made EJS a leader and premier coalition partner in the reparations movement in California and nationally. She is a co-founder and leader of the Alliance for Reparations, Reconciliation, and Truth (ARRT).
Under Ms. Holder’s leadership, EJS continues to build its dynamic civil rights practice to dismantle discriminatory school discipline and the school-to-prison pipeline, create a just and equitable legal system, promote and protect Black women’s health, and combat white supremacy and the extremist forces that threaten the multiracial democracy for which we all should strive.
Ms. Holder joined EJS’s legal team in 2016 as Of Counsel. She served as Interim Legal Director from 2018 through 2019. In these various roles, she has been an invaluable part of our litigation and advocacy to dismantle the school-to-prison pipeline, increase opportunity in higher education, and to advance race equity in the workplace and public health system.
In May 2021, California Governor Gavin Newsom appointed Ms. Holder to serve on the first-of-its-kind Task Force to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans, formed by the Governor’s signing of AB 3121, authored by then-Assemblymember Shirley Weber. The bill established the nine-member task force to educate the public about slavery and its history and pernicious aftereffects in California and make recommendations on how the state could provide reparations.
On June 29, 2023, the Task Force released a stunning 1,100-page final report with 115 recommendations and a survey of the history of anti-Black discrimination in America that serves as the scholarly underpinning for the reparations legislation.
Ms. Holder is a nationally recognized, award-winning trial attorney specializing in equal protection, education equity, employment discrimination, constitutional policing, and international human rights law. TIME selected her for its 2025 ‘The Closers’ list of 25 Black leaders working to end inequality. She was named by Super Lawyers as a Rising Star for four consecutive years.
A highly sought-after speaker, Ms. Holder is scheduled to keynote the UC Berkeley graduate student commencement in May 2025 and the California Employment Lawyers Association (CELA) Conference Diversity Outreach Committee Luncheon in October 2025.
She is also a recognized racial equity and constitutional law scholar, having lectured at UCLA Law and previously taught their Civil Rights and Constitutional Policing Clinic. As an adjunct professor at Occidental College, she created the curriculum for a class on the prison industrial complex. Ms. Holder also serves as a legislative consultant on institutional bias elimination.
Ms. Holder was among the principal attorneys who litigated Smith v. University of California Regents which compelled the elimination of the SAT/ACT in public higher education in California. As a result of that 2021 litigation, University of California and California State University schools are test-free with the highest level of diversity in applications and admissions since the Proposition 209 ban on affirmative action.
In 2019, Ms. Holder was a primary advocate and consultant in the drafting of AB 241 and 242 (Kamlager), the laws that now require all judges, attorneys, court staff, and health professionals to undertake continuing education on reducing implicit bias. In 2020, she served as a steering committee member for the Proposition 16 campaign to repeal California’s ban on affirmative action.
Ms. Holder is a recognized Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) expert and has designed and implemented diversity solutions and implicit bias trainings for non-profits, government entities, private equity, Hollywood film and television companies, and public defender offices across the country. She spearheaded the EJS team in producing an MCLE counter-bias training video for California attorneys.
Previously, Ms. Holder worked as a Los Angeles Deputy Alternate Public Defender, as an Associate for the civil and human rights law firm Hadsell Stormer, and as a law clerk for the Equal Justice Initiative. She served on the ACLU of Southern California Board of Directors for four years and is currently on the Board of Directors for the Child Care Law Center.
After obtaining a Bachelor of Arts degree at Wesleyan University, Ms. Holder graduated from New York University School of Law as a distinguished Root-Tilden Scholar.
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