Deborah Eve Anker is an American professor of law and director of the

Harvard Law School Harvard Law School (HLS) is the law school of Harvard University, a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1817, Harvard Law School is the oldest law school in continuous operation in the United ...

Immigration and Refugee Clinical Program, which she co-founded in 1984. The HIRC is a clinical and academic program that engages students in representation, and teaches institutional context,

legal doctrine A legal doctrine is a framework, set of rules, Procedural law, procedural steps, or Test (law), test, often established through precedent in the common law, through which judgments can be determined in a given legal case. For example, a doctrine ...

and theory. She has been a Harvard academic for over 35 years. Anker is the author of the treatise, ''Law of Asylum in the United States'', and she has co-drafted gender asylum guidelines and

amicus curiae An amicus curiae (; ) is an individual or organization that is not a Party (law), party to a legal case, but that is permitted to assist a court by offering information, expertise, or insight that has a bearing on the issues in the case. Wheth ...

briefs. Her scholarly work on asylum is widely cited, frequently by international and domestic courts and tribunals, including the United States Supreme Court. In 2014 the First Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a

Board of Immigration Appeals The Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) is an administrative appellate court, appellate body within the Executive Office for Immigration Review of the United States Department of Justice responsible for reviewing decisions of the U.S. immigration ...

decision denying asylum to a Guatemalan Mayan

Quiche Quiche ( ) is a French tart consisting of a pastry crust filled with savoury custard and pieces of cheese, meat, seafood or vegetables. A well-known variant is quiche lorraine, which includes lardons or bacon. Quiche may be served hot, wa ...

Indian, for which the HIRC wrote a brief. In August of the same year, the Board of Immigration Appeals recognized

domestic violence Domestic violence is violence that occurs in a domestic setting, such as in a marriage Marriage, also called matrimony or wedlock, is a culturally and often legally recognised union between people called spouses. It establishes r ...

as grounds for seeking asylum in the US, with Anker and the HIRC having written the amicus brief in that decision, in the case of ''Matter of A-R-C-G-''. In June 2015, Anker received the Arthur C. Helton Human Rights Award from the American Immigration Lawyers Association "in recognition of outstanding service in advancing the cause of human rights". She graduated

magna cum laude Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system is primarily used in the United States. It is also used in some Sout ...

from

Brandeis University Brandeis University () is a Private university, private research university in Waltham, Massachusetts, United States. It is located within the Greater Boston area. Founded in 1948 as a nonsectarian, non-sectarian, coeducational university, Bra ...

, and received a J.D. from the Northeastern University Law School. She also has a Master of Law degree and Master of Arts and Teaching degree from Harvard. She is a Fellow of the

American Bar Foundation The American Bar Foundation (ABF) is a nonprofit research institute established in 1952 and located in Chicago, United States. The American Bar Foundation is located in the same building as Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law in do ...

. Her father, Irving Anker, was a

New York City Schools Chancellor The New York City Schools Chancellor (formally the "Chancellor of the New York City Department of Education") is the head of the New York City Department of Education. The Chancellor is appointed by the mayor, and serves at the mayor's pleasure ...

during

desegregation Racial integration, or simply integration, includes desegregation (the process of ending systematic racial segregation), leveling barriers to association, creating equal opportunity regardless of race, and the development of a culture that draws ...

. Her mother, Sara R. Anker, was a history teacher at Martin Van Buren High School in Queens Village. Deborah Anker married Alan Nogee and has a son with him.Anker, Deborah E. Law of Asylum in the United States (Thompson West 4th ed. 2011).

Bar admissions

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) is the highest court in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Although the claim is disputed by the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, the SJC claims the distinction of being the oldest continuously fu ...

, 1975 *

United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts The United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts (in case citations, D. Mass.) is the United States district court, federal district court whose Jurisdiction (area), territorial jurisdiction is the Commonwealth (U.S. state), C ...

, 1976 *

United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit The United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit (in case citations, 1st Cir.) is a federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the district courts in the following districts: * District of Maine * District of Massachusetts ...

, 1980 *

United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (in case citations, 9th Cir.) is the U.S. federal court of appeals that has appellate jurisdiction over the U.S. district courts for the following federal judicial districts: * Distric ...

, 1987 *

United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that turn on question ...

, 1993

References

Selected bibliography

*Anker, Deborah E. Law of Asylum in the United States, 2015 Edition ( Thompson-Reuters). * *Anker, Deborah E. "2 Legal change from the bottom up." Gender in Refugee Law: From the Margins to the Centre (2014): 46. *Anker, Deborah E. "Grutter V. Bollinger: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's Legitimization of the Role of Comparative and International Law in US Jurisprudence." Harvard Law Review 127.1 (2013): 425. *Anker, Deborah E., Nancy Kelly, John Willshire Carrera & Sabrineh Ardalan. "Mejilla-Romero: A New Era For Child Asylum," 12-09 Immigration Briefings, Thompson-Reuters 1 (2012). *Anker, Deborah E. "Corroboration, Credibility and Nexus in Asylum Law" in AILA Immigration & Nationality Law Handbook (American Immigration Lawyers Association, 2012). *Anker, Deborah E. Law of Asylum in the United States, 7th Edition, Thomson-Reuters (2014). *Anker, Deborah E. & Sabrineh Ardalan. "Escalating Persecution of Gays and Refugee Protection: Comment on Queer Cases Make Bad Law," 44 N.Y.U. Journal of International Law and Politics 529 (2012). *Anker, Deborah E. "Gender-based Particular Social Group Claims: Overview" in AILA Immigration & Nationality Law Handbook (American Immigration Lawyers Association, 2011). *Anker, Deborah E. "Refugee law, gender, and the human rights paradigm."Harv. Hum. Rts. J. 15 (2002): 133.

External links

Harvard websiteHIRCThe Lexington Principles on the Rights of Detainees on Wikimedia Commons
{{DEFAULTSORT:Anker, Deborah American legal scholars Harvard Law School faculty Harvard Graduate School of Education alumni Harvard Law School alumni Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Brandeis University alumni