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THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary


For Immediate Release December 15, 1997
            PRESIDENT CLINTON NAMES BILL LANN LEE AS ACTING 
        ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR THE CIVIL RIGHTS DIVISION 
         AND COUNSELOR TO THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR CIVIL RIGHTS 
                ENFORCEMENT AT THE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

The President today announced Bill Lann Lee as Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division and Counselor to the Attorney General for Civil Rights Enforcement at the Department of Justice.

Bill Lann Lee, of Los Angeles, California, has devoted his career to civil rights law. As a litigator, Mr. Lee is known as a pragmatic attorney and a skilled coalition builder. For the past twenty-three years, he has worked with a wide variety of organizations and citizens in order to achieve consensus and obtain justice for victims of discrimination. He has served since 1989 as Western Regional Counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF). From 1983-1988, Mr. Lee was Supervising Attorney for Civil Rights Litigation at the Center for Law in the Public Interest in Los Angeles. From 1974-1982, Mr. Lee was Assistant Counsel at LDF in New York City. Mr. Lee has been active in a wide range of civil rights cases, including class-based employment discrimination, school desegregation, health care accessability, police brutality, public transportation equity, and federal financial assistance cases. Additionally, he has been an Adjunct Professor of Political Science at Fordham University.

Mr. Lee was raised in New York City as the son of Chinese immigrants. His father, who volunteered for the American Army and fought in the Pacific theater, returned and taught his children the value of scholarship and opportunity. Mr. Lee attended public schools, won a scholarship to Yale College, graduated with honors, and received a Juris Doctorate degree from Columbia Law School.

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