Mia Mingus and Ethel Branch honored for advocacy and justice work

Transformative and disability justice activist Mia Mingus is being honored by Phillips Brooks House Association (PBHA) on Friday, Oct. 15 with the 15^th annual Robert Coles “Call of Service” Award, named for Robert Coles ’50, a civil rights activist, Pulitzer Prize winner, and retired Harvard professor. Mingus’ work on disability justice, ableism, and access has elevated disability rights dialogue across the country.

PBHA is also honoring Ethel Branch ’01, J.D. ’08, M.P.P. ’08, former attorney general of the Navajo Nation, with the Outstanding Alumni Award for her work leading several tribal rights and environmental advocacy cases on behalf of indigenous people. Branch estimated in an interview with Harvard Law Today that half of her work as attorney general involved suing the U.S. government to enforce treaties and agreements. At Harvard, Branch was a Zuckerman Fellow and Nationbuilding Fellow.  She also served as a senior editor and article editor on the Harvard Environmental Law Review.  Branch is an elected director of Harvard Alumni Affairs and currently serves as a member of Kanji & Katzen in Arizona.

“Ethel represents the best of PBHA and the best of Harvard. We are all in admiration of her work for equality and representation for Indigenous people and we are honored to celebrate her as this year’s outstanding alumni,” said Maria Dominguez Gray, Ed.M. ’94 who serves as the Class of 1955 executive director of PBHA.

Kenneth Aldrich ’60 will be honored with PBHA’s 2021 Outstanding Supporter award for his years of financial support for PBHA’s mission and work, particularly the Summer Urban Program. Tatiana Chaterji ’08 will also lead a healing justice reflection for alumni and students.

Click here to sign up for PBHA’s Robert Coles “Call of Service” Lecture and Award on Friday, Oct. 15, 2021. To join PBHA’s Alumni Weekend activities on Saturday, Oct. 16, click here.