Christopher Ho Wins Alumni Public Service Award

The John and Terry Levin Center for Public Service and Public Interest Law recognized Christopher Ho ’87 with its annual Alumni Public Service Award for his advocacy on behalf of immigrants and low-income workers. The award, given annually to an alumnus who exemplifies a commitment to public service and provides innovative models of public interest practice, was presented to Ho at an on-campus ceremony last November. Ho, a senior staff attorney with the Legal Aid Society-Employment Law Center in San Francisco, has made his name pioneering legal challenges to “English-only” policies and arbitrary English language proficiency requirements that are often covert means for employers to discriminate against immigrants. He was also instrumental in litigating the landmark Rivera v. Nibco case, in which the Ninth Circuit recognized that immigrant workers would be intimidated from coming forward to enforce their rights if employers could find out their immigration status in discovery. Ho was honored along with David Doniger of the Natural Resources Defense Council’s Climate Center, who was given the Levin Center’s National Public Service Award.