Chinese attorney granted posthumous law license

Hong Yen Chang was denied the right to practice law in California in 1890 be­cause of his race.



This is awesome. On Monday, the California Supreme Court decided unanimously to grant a posthumous law license to a Chinese immigrant whose application was denied 125 years ago solely because of his race.

Chinese immigrant, denied law license in 1890, gets one posthumously

In 1890, Hong Yen Chang came to San Francisco and applied for a license to practice law to help his fellow Chinese immigrants. But the state Supreme Court said Chang, despite his New York state law license, was ineligible for the California bar because of "persons of the Mongolian race" were not entitled to citizenship.

This week, in a nine-page ruling, the state court -- which includes three Asian American justices -- repudiated the 1890 decision. While the court said the ruling could not undo history, it was "past time to acknowledge that the discriminatory exclusion of Chang from the State Bar of California was a grievous wrong."

Law students seek posthumous admission of Chinese lawyer to California State Bar

Hong Yen Chang was denied a license to practice law in California in 1890



A group of law students at UC Davis are fighting for the rights of an Asian American attorney who was denied the opportunity to practice law in California due to discrimination more than a century ago.

Law students seek to right historic wrong with posthumous California Bar admission of Chinese lawyer

Students with the Asian Pacific American Law Students Association (APALSA) at UC Davis are pushing for the posthumous admission of Hong Yen Chang to the California State Bar. Chang was denied a license to practice law in California in 1890. Because, in case you didn't know, California laws were f*cking racist in 1890.

Chang, who earned his law degree from Columbia Law School in 1886, was admitted to the New York state bar in 1886 -- the first Chinese immigrant admitted to any bar in the United States. But when he moved to California to practice in San Francisco, exclusionary laws barred him from earning his law license in the state.