Champions of Change
Khin Mai Aung, JD, is the Director of the Educational Equity Program at the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF) in New York City, NY. AALDEF's Educational Equity Program advocates on issues such as bilingual education, language access, bias-based harassment, school discipline, post 9-11 and gang profiling, affirmative action, and school integration in kindergarten through 12th grade and higher education. Under Ms. Aung's direction, AALDEF launched the first National Asian American Education Advocates Network with affiliates across the country, and filed Supreme Court amicus briefs supporting affirmative action, school integration and English Language Learner rights. Among her most notable achievements for individual clients, Ms. Aung won reinstatement for three Massachusetts teachers fired after discriminatory English fluency testing, and overturned the suspension of an Iowa honors student who protested her misclassification as an English Language Learner. Previously, she was the Director of Policy and Civic Engagement at Youth Leadership Institute, a Staff Attorney at Asian Law Caucus, and an Associate at Morrison and Foerster. Ms. Aung is a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley School of Law, and received her undergraduate degree from Georgetown University.