The Beacon Awards

About the Event

The 2024 Beacon Awards will take place on Thursday, January 18th at the Artists for Humanity Epicenter in South Boston.  Join us as we honor leaders in our community who have illuminated the path towards a more diverse, equitable and inclusive profession.

Voice of Change Award

Angela Onwuachi-Willig
Dean and Ryan Roth Gallo Professor of Law at Boston University School

The first Black woman dean of a Top 20 law school, Dean Onwuachi-Willig is a renowned legal scholar and expert in critical race theory, employment discrimination, and family law. She is one of five Black women law deans who started the Law Deans Antiracist Clearinghouse Project, an invaluable resource for law deans, faculty, and the public to access resources and information in an effort to address systemic racism, which earned her the Association of American Law Schools inaugural Impact Award. In addition, she created the ASPIRE program, which serves as an anti-racist scholarship program that “provides a full tuition scholarship for all three years to a select number of students who have demonstrated a commitment to antiracism, social justice, and racial equity.”  As the nation’s first endowed chair in critical race theory, Dean Onwuachi-Willig was elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences this past spring. Read her full biography.

The Voice of Change Award is presented annually to a luminary leader in the legal community who has forged a new path and has played an extensive role in advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion within the profession.