Susan K. Serrano

Director of Educational Development, Ka Huli Ao Center for Excellence in Native Hawaiian Law

Education

  • BA, University of California, Berkeley, 1992
  • JD, William S. Richardson School of Law, 1998

Biography

Susan K. Serrano joined the Law School in 2006 as the Director of Educational Development for Ka Huli Ao Center for Excellence in Native Hawaiian Law. She oversees several of Ka Huli Ao's projects, including its research and scholarship program, Post-J.D. Research Fellowship program, Ka He`e e-newsletter, and communications. She also teaches Legal Practice I and Second Year Seminar.

Prior to joining Ka Huli Ao, Ms. Serrano was a Special Projects Attorney at the Asian Law Caucus in San Francisco, California. She was also the founding Research Director (2001-2005) of the national Equal Justice Society. From 2000-2001, Ms. Serrano served as the Thurgood Marshall Fellow at the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area. Before joining the Lawyers' Committee, Ms. Serrano clerked for the Honorable Robert G. Klein and the Honorable Mario R. Ramil of the Hawai`i Supreme Court.

While in law school, Ms. Serrano served as the Articles Editor for the University of Hawai`i Law Review, worked at the Hawai`i Civil Rights Commission, and authored a chapter in E Alu Like Mai I Ka Pono - Coming Together For Justice: A Workbook For The Advancement Of Kanaka Maoli People. She also won the Trina Grillo Award for Best Student Paper in Critical Race Theory for her article, Rethinking Race for Strict Scrutiny Purposes: Yniguez and the Racialization of English Only, 19 UNIV. HAWAI`I L. REV. 221 (1997). Ms. Serrano has published in the areas of civil rights, critical race theory, Native Hawaiian rights, and human rights. She also has co-authored amicus curiae briefs in major cases such as Grutter v. Bollinger and Doe v. Kamehameha Schools. She is licensed to practice law in California and Hawai`i.

Selected Publication(s)

  • Cuyahoga Falls v. Buckeye: The Supreme Court's "Intent Doctrine"- Undermining Viable Discrimination Claims and Remedies for People Of Color, in WE DISSENT: TALKING BACK TO THE REHNQUIST COURT - EIGHT CASES THAT SUBVERTED CIVIL LIBERTIES AND CIVIL RIGHTS (Michael Avery ed., 2008) (with Eva Paterson).
  • Restorative Justice for Hawai`i's First People: Selected Amicus Curiae Briefs in Doe v. Kamehameha Schools, 14 ASIAN AM. L. J. 205 (2007) (with Eric K. Yamamoto, Melody Kapilialoha MacKenzie & David Forman).
  • Environmental Justice for Indigenous Hawaiians: Reclaiming Land and Resources, 21 NATURAL RESOURCES & ENVIRONMENT 37 (Winter 2007) (with Melody Kapilialoha MacKenzie & Koalani Kaulukukui).
  • Breathing Life into Brown at Fifty: Lessons About Equal Justice, 34 THE BLACK SCHOLAR 2 (Summer 2004) (with Eva Paterson, Lee Cokorinos and William Kidder).
  • Korematsu v. U.S.: A Constant Caution in A Time of Crisis, 10 ASIAN L. J. 37 (2003) (with Dale Minami).
  • American Racial Justice On Trial - Again: African American Reparations, Human Rights And The War On Terror, 101 MICH. L. REV. 1269 (2003) (with Eric K. Yamamoto and Michelle Natividad Rodriguez).

Contact Info

University of Hawai'i at Mānoa
William S. Richardson School of Law
2515 Dole Street
Honolulu, HI 96822-2328

Room
209
Email
susanks@hawaii.edu
Phone
(808) 956-6432
Fax
(808) 956-5569
Faculty Support Specialist