TWO OF A KIND
vened a daylong symposium of law enforcement agencies and victim service providers examining recent trends in human trafficking.
ACTIVIST ROOTS Kamala and her sister, Maya, credit their parents for instilling certain values in them. Shyamala Gopalan had immigrated from her native India in the late 1950s to obtain a doctorate degree at the University of California, Berkeley, where she met and mar- ried Donald Harris, a graduate student who had immigrated from Jamaica. Tey frequently partici- pated in civil rights marches and related activities, so lofty concepts like “justice,” “freedom,” and “equality” peppered daily conversation around their daughters, both born in the 1960s. After the couple’s
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marriage ended, Shyamala Harris raised the children, constantly reminding them of how important it was to improve the qual- ity of life for others less fortunate. A breast cancer researcher, Harris’s work took her family to universities and hospitals throughout this country and Canada. Everywhere they lived, Kamala and Maya watched their mother help graduate students find apartments and navigate university bureaucracies, many of them minorities and the first in their family to pursue advanced degrees. Kamala earned a J.D. from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law; Maya earned hers from Stanford Law School. “We are our mother’s daughters,” Maya Harris says. “We are who we are because of our mother’s example.”
PURSUING MULTIPLE CAREER PATHS At the Ford Foundation, Maya works with field staff and grant recipients worldwide. In 2011, the
DIVERSITY & THE BAR® JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2013
“WE ARE OUR MOTHER’S DAUGHTERS. WE ARE WHO WE ARE BECAUSE OF OUR MOTHER’S EXAMPLE.” —Maya Harris
most recent year for which data is available, the foundation distributed more than $157 million in grants to organizations involved in causes within Maya’s democracy, rights, and justice portfolio, such as protecting human rights in marginalized communities and promoting transparent and accountable government in emerging democracies. HIV/AIDS advocacy organizations in the United States, for instance, have received capacity-building grants so that their leaders can better educate poli- cymakers and expand litigation to reduce discrimi- nation against people with AIDS. In fast-growing democracies such as Indonesia, nonprofit organiza- tions have gotten grants for capacity building and technical assistance in order to increase civic participation among the general population and reduce poverty. “It’s an awesome
responsibility that I don’t take lightly,” Maya says of the foundation’s global reach. “Every day, I wake up and wonder how I can work with my team to make the most and best of our resources.” Interestingly, she never
explored philanthropy full-time until joining the foundation as a vice presi- dent in 2008, her first job outside California. Like many newly
minted lawyers, Maya worked in private
practice. She spent three years in the mid-1990s as an associate at the San Francisco office of Jackson Tufts Cole & Black, LLP, which has practice areas such as telecommunications and intellectual property. While litigating cases for the firm, she was also an adjunct faculty member at several nearby law schools and taught courses such as contracts and gender discrimination. A switch to academia full-time came in 1996 when she became dean of Lincoln Law School of San Jose, which offered only a part-time, evening course of study that conse- quently attracted many students with full-time jobs.
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