USF Law Student Wins National Outstanding Student Award

The University of San Francisco’s Ann Kariuki, a third-year law student, has received the National Black Law Students Association’s (NBLSA) Outstanding Student Award.

Kariuki, who was born in Kenya, serves as the career and professional development chair of the USF School of Law chapter of the Black Law Students Association. She developed a passion for justice at a young age that led her to law school. She is active in volunteering, mentoring, and tutoring at several Bay Area legal clinics as well as with a number of community service and advocacy organizations –among them La Raza Centro Legal, the Asian Pacific Islander Legal Outreach, and The Forgotten International.

Kariuki has also served as a law clerk for the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office, a judicial intern for the Superior Court of California in San Francisco, a legal intern for the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office, and a program assistant for the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Global Health Bureau.

“I believe that the black community at-large still struggles to gain access to many areas previously withheld based on discriminatory policies, whether it’s academically, economically, socially, or politically,” Kariuki said. “As a young black educated woman, I believe it is my duty and privilege, as it was for those that came before me, to continue to champion all efforts to advance and empower my community both locally and globally.”

Kariuki has also received the NBLSA Rodney Pulliam Memorial Scholarship, Charles Houston Bar Association Scholarship, Bar Association of San Francisco Minority Scholarship, and Bono and Capps California State Society Congressional Award.