Hammad Alam

Hosted by Asian Americans Advancing Justice LA
Sponsored by Greenberg Traurig, LLP
Service location Los Angeles, California
Law school University of California, Los Angeles School of Law
Issue area Children/Youth
Fellowship class year 2018
Program Design Your Own Fellowship

The Project

Hammad provides legal and policy advocacy and outreach to Arab, Middle Eastern, Muslim, and South Asian (AMEMSA) students and families who are victims of school bullying in San Bernardino County, California.

Hammad’s project provides critically needed representation to AMEMSA students suffering from bullying, harassment, and discrimination across schools in San Bernardino County, a severely underserved region of Southern California, and other parts of the region. Through community education, policy advocacy, and direct legal representation, Hammad seeks to disrupt the normalization of AMEMSA students’ bullying and harassment experiences, create space for conversations within AMEMSA communities regarding students’ rights issues, and fill a critical gap in services for a group disproportionately impacted by bullying, harassment, and discrimination, but for whom few legal or advocacy resources exist.

Fellowship Highlights

In the past year, Hammad has:

Conducted outreach to over 500 AMEMSA students and parents across San Bernardino County, carrying out Know Your Rights workshops, providing advice and counsel regarding school bullying and other education issues, and creating spaces for solidarity and healing
Represented AMEMSA and other Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (“AANHPI”) students by filing uniform complaints, pursuing California Department of Education appeals, and working with schools and districts to address systemic issues through collaborative and community-based solutions
Built, led, and participated in coalitions to address students’ rights issues

Next Steps

In the next year, Hammad plans to:

Provide additional direct legal representation to AMEMSA and other AANHPI students, addressing incidents of bullying, harassment, or discrimination in K-12 schools, with a focus on achieving solutions centering restorative justice and collective healing
Conduct Know Your Rights workshops and presentations with students and parents across the Inland Empire region of Southern California and implement anti-bias teacher trainings
Investigate and implement a broader impact litigation challenge or policy proposal to address key issues impacting AMEMSA students and communities, such as addressing language access, mental health and trauma, or instituting ethnic studies programs