Terry M. Ao is the director of the census and voting programs for the Asian American Justice Center (AAJC). A national expert on decennial census and census policy matters, Ms. Ao co-chairs the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights’ Census Task Force with the National Association of Latino Elected & Appointed Officials (NALEO) and sits on the U.S Department of Commerce’s 2010 Census Advisory Committee as a permanent substitute advisor to the U.S. Secretary of Commerce. Ms. Ao has been consulted on matters pertaining to the privacy and confidentiality of census data, planning for the 2010 census and the American Community Survey, and other important issues.
Ms. Ao is a leading expert on section 203 of the Voting Rights Act, reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act, and election protection. In 2004 and 2006, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law selected Ms. Ao to serve in a leadership capacity in its national Election Protection Program. Also in 2004, the Youth Vote Coalition honored Ms. Ao as one of 30 people under the age of 30 who are engaging young people in the electoral process. Ms. Ao was an Advisory Board Member to the Civil Rights Project at the University of California Berkeley’s Voting Rights and Democratic Participation Project. In 2006, Ms. Ao published an article in the Alabama Law Review discussing the impact of the immigration debate on the reauthorization of Section 203 of the Voting Rights Act, entitled “When the Voting Rights Act Became Un-American: The Misguided Vilification of Section 203.”
Ms. Ao has appeared before the national, ethnic, local and regional media on her program areas. She has also been a featured speaker at many different events, such as the National Asian Pacific American Conference on Law and Public Policy at Harvard University, the National NOW Conference, the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association National Convention, the Japanese American Citizens League and Organization of Chinese American Leadership Conference, the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s Conference on the Voting Rights Act: Strengthening Diversity in Democracy, Yale University’s Lessons from the Past, Prospects for the Future: Honoring the 40th Anniversary of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and events coordinated by the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, Ms. Ao has also provided staff briefings on Capitol Hill on issues of importance to the community.
In 2003, Ms. Ao was counsel on the amicus curiae briefs filed in support of the University of Michigan in the landmark affirmative action Gratz v. Bollinger and Grutter v. Bollinger cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. Her amicus work also includes assisting in the drafting of amicus briefs in both Adarand v. Mineta in the U.S. Supreme Court and Grutter v. Bollinger in the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals.
Ms. Ao received her Juris Doctor, cum laude, from American University Washington College of Law and her Bachelor’s degree in economics at the University of Chicago.
