Kimberly Thomas Rapp began serving as Executive Director for Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area in January 2012. Along with her colleagues, Kimberly works to protect and promote the rights of communities of color, immigrants and refugees by providing direct legal services and advancing impact litigation and policy advocacy. Under Kimberly’s leadership, the organization’s economic empowerment program has been restored and revisioned as one of three core programs designed to expand opportunity for low-income and marginalized communities. In April 2013, Lawyers’ Committee secured a major legal victory in favor of disadvantaged business programs in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to ensure equal contracting opportunities for minority-owned businesses. She has also been instrumental in the organization’s push to expand access to education for youth of color and low-income. Lawyers’ Committee recently released a report, “Held Back: Addressing Misplacement of 9th Grade Students in Bay Area School Math Classes,” that explored the disproportionate number of students of color being required to repeat Algebra I in the 9th grade after successfully passing the class and related standardized tests in 8th grade. Starting 9th grade in Algebra I sets a student on a path that may not lead to the high level math classes necessary for college eligibility and socio-economic success. Prior to joining Lawyers’ Committee, Kimberly worked in public government as Lead Deputy Counsel for the Santa Clara County Counsel’s Office where she was responsible for representing and advising the County’s Equal Opportunity Division, Social Services Agency, Santa Clara Valley Medical Center, Board of Supervisors and other departments on a broad range of civil rights matters, labor and employment issues, and complex transactions involving public, private and not-for profit stakeholders. Kimberly also previously served as the Director of Law and Public Policy for the Equal Justice Society where she developed and implemented programmatic initiatives to restore constitutional safeguards against discrimination. Her work included coordinating U.S. Supreme Court litigation strategies among legal practitioners, professors, communications professionals and social scientists around the country. She worked in collaboration with the California Teachers Association and the National Education Association on initiatives to address the impact of social cognition theory in the classroom and narrow the achievement gap. Kimberly has also worked in the private sector conducting workplace investigations and trainings on issues of discrimination and harassment. Kimberly earned her J.D. from Stanford Law School and her B.A. in Rhetoric from the University of California, Berkeley.