The Michael A. Olivas Award for Outstanding Leadership in Diversity and Mentoring in the Legal Academy will be awarded to the AALS faculty member who most vividly exemplifies Professor Olivas’s devotion to mentoring and diversity. The recipient will be a faculty member with an outstanding record of mentoring junior and aspiring faculty from underrepresented communities and otherwise promoting diversity, inclusion, and equity in the legal academy.

The Clyde Ferguson Award honors an outstanding law teacher, who, in the course of his or her career, has achieved excellence in the areas of public service, teaching, and scholarship, particularly law teachers who have provided support, encouragement and mentoring to colleagues, students and aspiring legal educators. The Derrick Bell Award honors a junior faculty member who, through activism, mentoring, colleagueship, teaching or scholarship, has made an extraordinary contribution to legal education, the legal system, or social justice.

The award recognizes innovative contributions to the inclusion of LGBTQ+ people in the legal academy and profession more broadly. The Section especially seeks nominations that focus on the inclusion of LGBTQ+ students, before, during, and after their legal education. The Section will give two awards, one individual award and one institutional / program award.

Increasing diversity in the legal profession demands workplaces expand opportunities for and contribute to the success of underrepresented students including racial and ethnic minorities, students with disabilities, and students who identify as LGBTQ+, by creating an educational pipeline that supports students into and through law school and into the legal profession. The Alexander Award was created to honor an individual or organization that has demonstrated exemplary leadership and success in building such an educational pipeline.

Each year, this award honors up to five outstanding women lawyers who have achieved professional excellence within their area of specialty and have actively paved the way to success for other women lawyers. These women demonstrate excellence in a variety of professional settings and personify excellence on either the national, regional, or local level.

The ABF William H. Neukom Fellows Research Chair in Diversity and Law is a year-long visiting position. The Neukom Chair is an outstanding scholar with a distinguished record of scholarship in law and the social sciences who conducts empirical research on diversity and law, broadly conceived.

This award from the American Sociological Association honors the intellectual tradition of Oliver Cox, Charles S. Johnson, and E. Franklin Frazier, who placed their scholarship in service to social justice with an eye toward advancing the status of disadvantaged populations. Their scholarship was not limited to just the gathering of more data, but it was about attempting to better conditions globally.

NAWL gives numerous awards to law students, legal professionals and attorneys who have excelled the previous year in their field via writing, professional achievement or by advancing diversity in law and in society.

The PLEDGE Fellowship is an 18-month professional development program and intervention-based research project sponsored by AccessLex Institute and the Southern Education Foundation. The fellowship targets experienced law school administrators, faculty members, or other similarly situated and experienced professionals. Teams of two fellows will undertake intervention-based research projects, called Capstones, focusing on one of the following three topical strands: Admission and Access, Academic Performance, or Bar Exam Performance

The Diversity & Inclusion Award celebrates an individual who contributes to and enhances diversity and inclusion within the Wisconsin legal profession.

Individual faculty members, departments, and student organizations are invited to submit nominations of faculty members whose teaching is of such quality that it merits recognition and award. The committee encourages the nomination of any exceptional distinguished teacher, regardless of specialty or rank. The UW-Madison faculty distinguished teaching awards include:
• Chancellor’s Distinguished Teaching Awards (5 awards)
• Chancellor’s Inclusive Excellence Award recognizes achievements in diversity and inclusion (2 awards)
• Class of 1955 Teaching Excellence Award is designated for an Assistant or Associate Professor
• Emil Steiger Teaching Award
• Van Hise Outreach Teaching Award recognizes excellence in outreach teaching
• Excellence in Community-Based Learning Teaching Award celebrates the incorporation of meaningful community engagement into courses
• Chancellor’s Teaching Innovation Award recognizes innovation in approach to learning

This award recognizes members of critical UW Madison campus partners that contribute to an inclusive campus community for students with disabilities.

These awards acknowledge and honor women of color among UW-Madison faculty, staff, students (undergraduate or post-baccalaureate) and in the greater Madison community, who have made outstanding contributions in one or more of the following areas:
• social justice, activism and advocacy on behalf of disadvantaged, marginalized populations
• community service
• scholarly research, writing, speaking and/or teaching on race, ethnicity and indigeneity in U.S. society, and
• community building on- or off-campus, to create an inclusive and respectful environment for all

Slesinger Awards recognize mentoring of women, trans, or non-binary faculty on the tenure track. Nominations from a group of writers or a single writer are welcome; however, a collective nomination of a mentor who has supported more than one protégé is looked on favorably. The most successful nominations clearly articulate how a mentor’s efforts have had a positive impact in the life and career of the protégé(s) and/or have had a lasting impact on the institution.

These awards recognize people, units, and initiatives whose work has fostered greater access and success for students from historically underrepresented and disadvantaged populations at UW System campuses.
Nominees’ work must demonstrate:
• Sustainable positive impact on equity and diversity, leading to positive university change
• Accountability demonstrated through routine assessment and use of feedback loops to promote forward movement on equity and diversity goals
• Intersections across multiple dimensions of diversity
• Collaborations with other units, departments, or communities, both within the university and beyond

Successful candidates will be LGBTQ+ people or their allies whose contributions have advanced the work of diversity, equity, and inclusive excellence in the following ways:
• Whose advocacy, activism, or scholarship has fostered social justice and organizational change
• Who have created positive transformation within their institutions and/or the community to achieve the goals of diversity, equity, and inclusion
• Whose efforts are improving the climate for, or status and visibility of, LGBTQ+ people

The Outstanding Women of Color in Education Award honors women of color from around the state for their leadership in making significant and lasting contribution to their campuses, their communities, or both. Successful candidates will be women of color whose contributions have advanced the work of diversity, equity, and Inclusive Excellence. UW System faculty, staff, student, or community members are eligible.

Awards are given to individuals and organizations that have demonstrated a significant contribution toward creating a diverse and inclusive business/academic/social community though the implementation of policies, procedures, initiatives, and/or programs.