SAALT Council of Advisors

SAALT’s Council of Advisors, created in 2006, assembles a group of individuals with expertise and knowledge about policy issues and immigrant communities. The Council of Advisors provides guidance to SAALT regarding stances on policy issues and collaborations with South Asian and non-South Asian organizations.  They may be contacted by media as expert spokespeople on issues pertaining to the South Asian American community.

Muneer Ahmad is an associate professor of law at the Washington College of Law at the American University in DC. He holds expertise in immigrants’ rights, clinical legal education, labor and employment and poverty law. Prior to joining the faculty of the Washington College of Law, Ahmad was staff attorney and Skadden Fellow at the Asian Pacific American Legal Center in Los Angeles. Previously he was law clerk to the Hon. William K. Sessions, III, U.S. District Court in Burlington, Vt. From 1998 to 2001 he was Legal Task Force Chair of the South Asian Network in Artesia, Cal. He has presented on various human rights topics at such institutions as: Harvard University, University of California-Los Angeles, California State University-Northridge, New England School of Law, Loyola Marymount University.  He has also presented at conferences sponsored by: U.S. Department of State, American Studies Association, The Rockefeller Foundation, The California Endowment, The Wellness Foundation, National Asian Pacific American Bar Association, National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum. He is author of "Serving Market Needs, Not People's Needs: The Indignity of Welfare Reform," 10 Amer. U. J. of Gender, Soc. Policy & Law 27 (2002); "Homeland Insecurities: Racial Profiling the Day After 9/11," Social Text 72, Vol. 20, No. 3 (Fall 2002); "The Ethics of Narrative," 11 Amer. U. J. of Gender, Soc. Policy & Law 117 (2002); "A Rage Shared by Law: Post-September 11 Racial Violence as Crimes of Passion," 92 Cal. L. Rev. 1259 (2004).

Anushka Fernandopulle lives in San Francisco and works as a management consultant, facilitator, coach and trainer for nonprofit organizations in the Bay Area and nationally. Anushka holds an MBA from the Yale School of Management focusing on organizational behavior and nonprofit management and a BA from Harvard University in Social Anthropology and Comparative Religions. Her work has included supporting organizations in the fields of public health, social and economic justice, civil rights, the environment, and the arts. Anushka is also a lay teacher in the Theravada Buddhist tradition and teaches retreats around the US.

Vanita Gupta works for the national legal department of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) where she litigates cases to improve access to justice and education for communities of color, and challenges post-9/11 racial profiling and racially-biased aspects of the criminal justice system. Before joining the ACLU, Ms. Gupta served as Assistant Counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund, Inc. (LDF) for five years. At LDF, her work centered on civil rights litigation that promoted systemic reform of the criminal justice system. Ms. Gupta successfully led the effort to overturn the drug convictions of 38 defendants in Tulia, Texas, representing wrongfully-convicted individuals, organizing national law firms, and coordination the overall legal and media strategy. With co-counsel, she settled civil rights cases filed on behalf of the wrongfully convicted Tulia residents for $6 million. A movie, titled Tulia, about Ms. Gupta’s role in exposing the injustice in Tulia will be released in 2008.

Ms. Gupta has received numerous awards including the Reebok Human Rights Award and the American Red Cross “Rising Star” award, the India Abroad Special Award for Outstanding Achievement, and the Upakar Foundation Community Ambassador Award. Ms. Gupta was also profiled in The New York Times “Public Lives” section in 2003. She is a member of the U.S. Programs Advisory Committee for Human Rights Watch, and a member of SAALT’s Council of Advisors.

Chaumtoli Huq is the Director of Litigation for Manhattan Legal Services which provides free legal services to low income residents of Manhattan through its offices in Harlem and Lower Manhattan. Prior to joining MLS, she was the senior staff attorney with MFY Legal Service's Workplace Justice Project. Ms. Huq was previously a staff attorney with the New York Taxi Workers' Alliance (NYTWA), a membership-based organization of immigrant taxi-drivers in New York City. There, she directed the Wheels of Justice project which provided legal support to TWA organizing efforts through litigation and policy initiatives. Ms. Huq moved to NYTWA from the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF) in New York, where she was a Staff Attorney/Skadden Fellow. Ms. Huq founded and directed the first South Asian Workers Rights Project (SAWRP) that provided legal support to low wage South Asian workers. After graduating from Columbia University in 1993, Ms.Huq worked as the Domestic Violence Coordinator at Sakhi for South Asian Women. A graduate of Northeastern University School of Law, she was a Staff Attorney at the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Philadelphia, PA from 1997-1999. Born in Bangladesh and raised in Bronx, New York, Ms. Huq tries to connect her community based work in New York with international human rights issues. She is a proud mother of two children: Zarif and Liyana.

Ann Kalayil is the co-founder and director of the South Asian American Policy and Research Institute (SAAPRI). She has a Ph.D. in History from the University of Wisconsin at Madison and teaches Asian American Studies at DePaul University. She has taught courses focusing on Asian and Asian-American History at the University of Illinois and Loyola University. As a Board member of several organizations, both community service and advocacy based, she is active in Chicago’s Indian American and Asian American community. She has conducted diversity training and spent over a decade advocating in the following areas: economic development for target communities, reforms in immigration, campaign finance, education, tougher hate crimes legislation, combating stereotyping of Asian Americans in media, and political empowerment.

Anil Kalhan is an Associate Professor of Law at Drexel University’s Earle Mack School of Law. Before coming to Drexel, he was a Visiting Assistant Professor at Fordham University Law School and an Associate in Law at Columbia Law School, and he previously served as a litigation associate at Cleary, Gottlieb, Steen & Hamilton and co-coordinator of the firm’s immigration and international human rights pro bono practice group. He also has previously worked for the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project in New York and served as law clerk to the Hon. Chester J. Straub (U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit) and the Hon. Gerard E. Lynch (U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York). He currently serves on the board of directors of the South Asian Bar Association of New York, the national council of advisors for South Asian Americans Leading Together, and the advisory board of the Discrimination and National Security Initiative of the Harvard University Pluralism Project. He has been a contributing writer for Dorf on Law, AsiaMedia, and SAJAforum, and previously was a member of the International Law Committee and International Human Rights Committee of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York. Before attending law school, he worked for Cable News Network, the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour, and the New York City Department of Transportation.

Sheela Murthy After gaining experience in top firms in New York and Baltimore, Sheela Murthy began the Murthy Law Firm in 1994. Located on the outskirts of Baltimore, Maryland with a liaison office in Chennai, India, her firm is considered one of the world’s premier U.S. immigration law firms, as confirmed by the U.K.-based Chambers Global. Having earned her LL.M. from Harvard Law School, Ms. Murthy has many honors to her credit. She is recognized as a Super Lawyer in Maryland, listed as one of the top U.S. immigration lawyers in the world in the Who's Who in Corporate Immigration Law, as one of Baltimore’s top twenty-five lawyers by the Baltimore Business Journal, and is a recent recipient of the Bravo! Award from SmartCEO Magazine, awarded to women entrepreneurs. Ms. Murthy serves on several boards, including the American Immigration Law Foundation, the Girl Scouts of Central Maryland, the MurthyFoundation, and Stevenson University. She is active at the leadership level of nonprofit organizations including the United Way of Central Maryland and United Way International. A frequent speaker, both nationally and internationally, Ms. Murthy has appeared at Harvard and other universities, and is often quoted in national and local media. Sheela is sought after as a motivational speaker for her passion and unique perspectives on life as an immigrant, a minority woman, and as a business leader.

Nitasha Kaur Sawhney is a partner in the Los Angeles office of Garcia Calderon Ruiz, LLP. Ms. Sawhney specializes in education, labor and employment law and advises clients on matters related to labor negotiations, personnel, charter schools, educational foundations, public meeting laws and school district governance matters. In 2006, Ms. Sawhney was appointed by California Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez to serve on the California State Commission on Asian and Pacific Islander American Affairs. Ms. Sawhney currently serves as vice-chair of the Commission. In addition, Ms. Sawhney is an advisor to the Discrimination & National Security Initiative, an affiliate of Harvard University’s Pluralism Project and is a member of the Los Angeles County Bar Association’s Diversity in the Profession Committee. Ms. Sawhney also serves as a legal volunteer with the California Sikh Council and the Sikh American Legal Defense & Education Fund (SALDEF). Ms. Sawhney was awarded the 2006 Spirit in Action Award from the Interfaith Councils of the City of Garden Grove, Stanton, and Westminster for her work in raising funds and awareness to aid victims of genocide in the Darfur region of Sudan and her dedication to public service. Due to her outstanding community service initiatives, Ms. Sawhney was awarded the 2008 Public Interest Award from South Asian Bar Association of Southern California on Asian and Pacific Islander American Affairs. Ms. Sawhney is a first generation South Asian American. She is a graduate of UC Berkeley where she studied Mass Communication and Ethnic Studies. Ms. Sawhney received her law degree from the UC Davis’ King Hall Law School.

Tito Sinha is an attorney in private practice, specializing in civil rights, real estate, and wills and estates. He is a former staff attorney, and former board member, at the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, where he worked on hate crimes, voting rights, immigrants rights and other civil rights areas. He is a graduate of the City University of New York School of Law and Swarthmore College. He is also a founding board member of South Asian Youth Action (SAYA!) in Queens, New York.

Jayashri Srikantia, a respected voice on immigration law and civil rights, is the director of the Stanford University Law School’s Immigrants’ Rights Clinic, in which students represent individual immigrants and immigrants’ rights organizations and also engage in community outreach, public education, and policy advocacy. She has litigated extensively on behalf of immigrants, and her experience includes challenges to mandatory and indefinite detention policies in the federal courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court and representation of human trafficking survivors. Before joining the Stanford Law School faculty in 2004, Professor Srikantiah was the associate legal director of the ACLU of Northern California and a staff attorney at the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project. She was a law clerk to Judge David R. Thompson of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.