WASHINGTON (TIP): Asian Americans Advancing Justice | AAJC celebrated its 2017 American Courage Awards to recognize and celebrate individuals, groups, and corporations for their commitment and contributions to civil rights, on October 5, 2017. Prominent Supreme Court attorney Neal K. Katyal is among this year’s honorees.
Neal K. Katyal, former Acting Solicitor General of the United States and is the representing attorney for the state of Hawaii in its challenge to the President’s Muslim ban, received the American Courage Award. The honor is for an individual who has shown extraordinary courage or commitment to civil rights. Neal’s prolific body of work includes defending the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act and defending the rule of law and due process in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld.
At the age of 47, Katyal has already argued more Supreme Court cases than any other minority attorney in U.S. history, except for Thurgood Marshall, with whom he is currently tied. Neal is best known for his work as lead counsel for the Guantanamo Bay detainees in the landmark decision Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, and for successfully defending the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In 2011, Katyal led efforts to issue a confession of error by the Solicitor General’s office, formally acknowledging and apologizing for its role in Korematsu v. United States. Recently, Katyal served as the lead attorney for the state of Hawaii’s challenge to the President’s travel ban. It is clear from his work that he has a personal as well as professional commitment to the advancement of civil rights.
Katyal was deemed “one of the finest lawyers who has argued before a court,” by Chief Justice John Roberts. In 2011, Neal received the highest award given to a civilian by the U.S. Department of Justice, the Edmund Randolph Award. Neal has also served as a law professor for nearly two decades at Georgetown University Law Center, where he was one of the youngest professors to have received tenure and a chaired professorship in the university’s history. He also fought to overturn the patents held by Myriad Genetics that could help diagnose breast cancer winning a unanimous Supreme Court decision.