2024 Father Drinan Award

The American Bar Association Section of Civil Rights and Social Justice honored longtime Section leader and Special Counsel Drucilla Stender Ramey with its Father Robert F. Drinan Award for Distinguished Service,  on January 25, 2024, at a virtual reception during the Section's Midyear Council Meeting. Friends and colleagues joined us as we honored her legacy with the Section - see below for the video tributes played at the virtual reception.

The Father Robert F. Drinan Award for Distinguished Service, first accepted by Father Drinan himself, honors those who have strengthened the Section of Civil Rights and Social Justice’s mission to provide leadership to the legal profession. Dru, like Father Drinan, has dedicated her life to professional excellence, integrity, and public service. Dru is committed to the legal profession and is a zealous advocate to advancing the causes of human rights, the rule of law, and civil rights.

See the ABA's press release (1/15/2024)

See the virtual Program Book

About the Selection

Section Chair Robin R. Runge details her reasoning for selecting Drucilla Stender Ramey as the 2024 Father Drinan Award recipient.

"It is my privilege to announce that this year’s recipient of the Section’s Father Robert F. Drinan Award will be Drucilla Ramey.  Named after Father Drinan, a past Chair of the Section, Dru embodies the values of this award which “recognizes individuals whose sustained and extraordinary commitment has advanced the Section’s mission of providing leadership to the legal profession in protecting and advancing human rights, civil liberties, and social justice.” She has worked tirelessly throughout her career to advance social justice and human rights and serves as a model for many young lawyers, demonstrating how to use a law degree to further civil rights. In multiple leadership positions including executive director of the San Francisco Bar Association and the National Association of Women Judges and Dean of Golden Gate University Law School. She has also served as the Chair of the Board of Directors of Equal Rights Advocates, the ACLU of Northern California and the San Francisco Commission on the Status of Women. Moreover, she co-founded and served on the board of California Women Lawyers, the California Minority Council Program and the Immigrant Legal Resource Center. We are thrilled to be honoring Dru in February 2024."

About the Recipient

Dean Emerita Drucilla Stender Ramey is a national leader and speaker on equality of access and opportunity in the legal profession, the justice system and the broader society.  Formerly a Nader Raider and MALDEF attorney specializing in tri-ethnic school desegregation cases, she led the Bar Association of San Francisco (BASF) as its longtime Executive Director and General Counsel, co-founding the California Minority Counsel Program and the SF School-to-College Program among other initiatives.  She thereafter served as Executive Director of the National Association of Women Judges and as Dean of Golden Gate University School of Law. The first woman Chair of the Board of Directors of the ACLU of Northern California, Ramey served as founding Vice-President of California Women Lawyers (CWL), Chair of the San Francisco Commission on the Status of Women under then-Mayor Dianne Feinstein, and longtime Board Chair of Equal Rights Advocates. She currently serves on the Public Advocates Board and as longtime Special Counsel to the Council of the ABA Section on Civil Rights and Social Justice Section, her ABA “home.”  A  magna um laude graduate of Harvard University and graduate of Yale Law School,  Ramey’s awards include the ABA’s Margaret Brent Women Lawyers of Achievement Award, the American Jewish Committee’s Learned Hand Award, the National Bar Association’s Wiley Branton Award,  the National LGBT Bar Association’s Allies for Justice Award and Equal Rights Advocates Gender Justice Award.