Benavides to be Honored at Ron Brown Center Alumni Dinner

The Ronald H. Brown Center for Civil Rights and Economic Development at St. John’s University will hold its 12th Annual Dinner on Friday, April 9, 2010. This year marks the 40th Anniversary of Secretary Brown’s graduation from St. John’s Law School and the honorees, selected by the center and its student organizations, all have a connection with Mr. Brown.

DSG’s Vida Benavides, who is being honored by the Asian Pacific American Law Students Association for her work on Civil Rights issues and the AAPI community, worked with Mr. Brown at the Democratic National Committee in the early ’90s. Mr. Brown founded the constituency division at the DNC, where Ms. Benavides later served as the Director of Constituency Outreach. “It is because of him that we were able to grow as a party, and I as a person,” she stated quite candidly while discussing the dinner.

Other honorees include:

Rodney E. Slater
Partner, Patton Boggs LLP
Black Law Students Association

William A. Ramos
Director of Intergovernmental Affairs, U.S. Department of Commerce
Latin American Law Students Association

Anurag Varma
Of Counsel, Patton Boggs LLP
South Asian Law Students Association

Hughes Hubbard & Reed LLP and AXA Equitable Legal Department
Ronald H. Brown Center for Civil Rights
and Economic Development Trailblazer Awards

The Ronald H. Brown Center’s mission is to engage in legal studies, research and outreach focusing on issues that affect the lives of underrepresented people while simultaneously educating law students to be leaders on issues of racial, economic and social justice. It is named after Ronald H. Brown, a St. John’s law school alumnus, who served as the first African American Secretary of Commerce and the first African American Chair of the Democratic National Committee. Tragically, Secretary Brown lost his life in a plane crash while on a trade mission in 1996.

Related:

• Ron Brown Scholar Program
• St. John’s University School of Law