Women Inspiring Change 2019 Honorees includes 2 HLS Clinicians

To commemorate International Women’s Day, the Harvard Women’s Law Association hosts an annual Harvard Law School International Women’s Day Portrait Exhibit. In its 6th year, the exhibit showcases the notable contributions of women around the world in law and policy. The honorees were nominated by HLS students, faculty or staff.

Among the portraits of powerful women in their field is Yee Htun and Dehlia Umunna.

Yee Htun is a Clinical Instructor and Lecturer on Law at the International Human Rights Clinic. She works extensively on gender justice issues and has been involved with law reform efforts to advance human rights in Myanmar.

Yee has more than ten years of international advocacy experience. Her reports on behalf of human rights defenders, refugees, internally displaced people and migrant communities have been submitted to the United Nations and its Special Rapporteurs.

Prior to teaching at Harvard Law School, she served as the Inaugural Director of Myanmar Program for Justice Trust and was selected by women Nobel Peace Laureates from Nobel Women’s Initiative to coordinate and lead the first-ever global campaign to stop rape and sexual violence in conflict.

Dehlia Umunna is a Clinical Professor of Law at Harvard Law School (HLS), and the Faculty Deputy Director of the law school’s Criminal Justice Institute (CJI), where she supervises third-year law students in their representation of adult and juvenile clients in criminal and juvenile proceedings in Massachusetts Courts, including the Supreme Judicial Court.

Her teaching interest and research focus on Criminal Law, Criminal Defense and Theory, Mass Incarceration, and Race Issues. She serves as a Faculty Adviser to some student organizations. Professor Umunna coaches the HLS National Criminal Justice Trial Advocacy and the HLS Black Law Student Association Trial Teams, and has led them to numerous regional and national awards. In addition to her work at HLS, Professor Umunna serves as a faculty member for Gideon’s Promise (formerly the Southern Public Defender’s Training Center), and is a frequent presenter at Public Defender Training Conferences and Social Justice Reform Panels around the country.