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125 Years Late, Chinese Lawyer Earns Right to Practice Law in California

Published

11 years ago

March 24, 2015

By Denny Walsh, Sacramento Bee

Acknowledging a “sordid chapter” in state history, the California Supreme Court ruled last week that a Chinese immigrant denied the right to practice law in California 125 years ago because of his race should be licensed posthumously.

The unanimous ruling came in response to a petition filed in 2014 by the Asian Pacific American Law Students Association at UC Davis.

The petition asked the high court to “right this historic wrong” by ordering the late Hong Yen Chang admitted to the State Bar of California.

“More than a century later, the legal and policy underpinnings of our 1890 decision have been discredited,” said Monday’s unsigned court opinion. “Even if we cannot undo history, we can acknowledge it and, in so doing, accord a full measure of recognition to Chang’s pathbreaking efforts to become the first lawyer of Chinese descent in the United States.”

The court’s ruling further stated that California’s courts and people “were denied Chang’s services as a lawyer. But we need not be denied his example as a pioneer for a more inclusive legal profession.”

UC Davis law professor Gabriel “Jack” Chin, who acted as faculty adviser to the law students on the project, called Monday’s ruling gratifying.

“I had known about this matter for 20 years. In 2011, the students and I began working on it. Now, it is very gratifying to see such a wonderful, scholarly ruling from the Supreme Court.”

Chin called it “particularly poignant that this historic decision comes from what is perhaps the most diverse state Supreme Court in the country, at the request of the UC Davis APALSA future lawyers, many of whom would have been barred under the 1890 decision.”

The court is made up of three Asian Americans, two white women, a Latino and a black.

“This is a historic moment for all Chinese Americans in California because a terrible wrong has been righted today by the California Supreme Court,” said Rachelle Chong, a California lawyer and a grandniece of Chang, in a statement released by the UCD law school.

Chang came to the United States at age 13 in 1872, as part of a program to teach Chinese youths about the West. He graduated from Phillips Academy in Massachusetts in 1879 and attended undergraduate school at Yale University. He received a Columbia Law School degree in 1886.

Two years later, he was licensed by the New York bar, becoming “the only regularly admitted Chinese lawyer in this country,” according to a front-page story in The New York Times on May 18, 1888.

But Chang hit a wall when he relocated to California and sought admission to its bar. A state statue allowed only citizens or people who were eligible for citizenship to practice law.

The state high court denied Chang’s motion, holding that natives of China could not become citizens under the federal Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. The naturalization certificate that Chang had obtained in New York, it said, “was issued without authority of law, and is void, it being conceded that the holder of it is a person of Mongolian nativity.”

In this week’s opinion, the court noted that understanding the state’s original denial of his right to practice law “requires a candid reckoning with a sordid chapter of our state and national history.”

Chang returned to China in 1907 and carved out successful careers in foreign service and finance. He later returned to California and died in Berkeley in 1926.

At the time of his death, the Chinese Exclusion Act and California’s citizenship requirement for State Bar membership were still in effect.

Led by partner Jeffrey Bleich, the law firm of Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP represented – without compensation – the UC Davis law students in their presentation to the Supreme Court.

The students argued that admitting Chang “would serve the public interest,” noting that the 1890 opinion bearing his name “closely associates Mr. Chang with this state’s and the nation’s history of discrimination against Asian Americans.”

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Poll Shows Support for Policies That Help Families Afford Child Care

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — New national polling shows persistent voter concern about the affordability and availability of child care for working parents, alongside broad support across key demographic groups for federal child care policies that help families afford care.

Published

2 days ago

March 2, 2026

Oakland Post

By First Five Years Fund

New national polling shows persistent voter concern about the affordability and availability of child care for working parents, alongside broad support across key demographic groups for federal child care policies that help families afford care.

The national survey was conducted by UpOne Insight on behalf of the First Five Years Fund from January 13–18, 2026.

Key findings include:

• Parents need help: 80% of voters say the ability of working parents to find and afford child care is either in a state of crisis or a major problem.

• This is an affordability issue: 82% believe federal child care funding will help lower costs for working families — including 69% of Republicans, 84% of Independents, and 94% of Democrats.

• And there continues to be strong support (62%) for the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG), a federal program that makes it possible for hundreds of thousands of families to afford safe, quality care for their children while parents work or go to school, including a majority of Republicans, 63% of Independents and 72% of Democrats.

• Support for funding child care programs remains strong: 75% believe child care funding should be increased or kept at current levels — including 75% of Republicans, 85% of Independents, and 97% of Democrats.

• 74% say funding for child care is an important and good use of tax dollars, including a majority of Republicans, three-quarters of Independents, and nine in ten Democrats.

FFYF Executive Director Sarah Rittling said, “Voters across the country are sending a clear message: federal child care and early learning programs work. These investments help parents stay in the workforce, strengthen families, and support healthy child development. They have also long had strong bipartisan support in Congress. At a time when affordability is top of mind for families, continued federal funding is essential to ensure child care remains accessible and within reach.”

First Five Years Fund works to protect, prioritize, and build bipartisan support for quality child care and early learning programs at the federal level. Reliable, affordable, and high-quality early learning and child care can be transformative, not only enhancing a child’s prospects for a brighter future but also bolstering working parents and fostering economic stability nationwide.

We work with Congress and the Administration to identify federal solutions that work for families with young children, as well as states and communities. We work with policymakers to identify ways to increase access to affordable, high-quality child care and early learning programs for children. And we collaborate with advocacy groups to help align best practices with the best possible policies. http://www.ffyf.org

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Oakland Post: Week of February 25 – March 3, 2026

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of – February 25 – March 3, 2026

Published

3 days ago

March 1, 2026

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Trump’s MAGA Allies are Creating Executive Order Plan to Steal the 2026 Midterms

NNPA NEWSWIRE — The document that could lead to an executive order proposes using the claim that China interfered with the 2020 elections as grounds to “declare a national emergency.” The move would be an unprecedented step that would grant Trump new authority over the voting systems in the U.S.

Published

5 days ago

February 27, 2026

Oakland Post

By Lauren Victoria Burke, NNPA Newswire Correspondent

A group of MAGA pro-Trump activists, who say they are working in coordination with the White House, are circulating a 17-page draft executive order that would claim without evidence that China interfered with the 2020 presidential election. Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential to President Joe Biden by over 7 million votes. Since Trump lost to Biden in 2020, he has repeatedly claimed that the election was “stolen” without evidence. The report of a group of “Trump allies” preparing an executive order to give Trump power over elections was first reported by The Washington Post.

The lies around the right-wing campaign that pushed falsehoods that the 2020 election was stolen was trafficked through right-wing media, particularly Fox News. Fox News was then sued for defamation for the claims by Dominion Voting Systems. Fox lost the case and had to settle for the largest defamation amount on record of $787.5 million in April 2023.

The document that could lead to an executive order proposes using the claim that China interfered with the 2020 elections as grounds to “declare a national emergency.” The move would be an unprecedented step that would grant Trump new authority over the voting systems in the U.S.

The story in The Washington Post arrives as Trump increasingly signals that he may take actions that would alter the result of the 2026 midterms. The Republicans are widely expected to lose as their approval ratings plummet as a result of a failing economy under Trump. Over 50 members of Congress have announced they will retire this year and not return in 2027.

The Trump Department of Justice, which now has a large image of Trump on the side of it, “sued five new states Thursday [Feb. 26, 2026] demanding access to their unredacted voter rolls — escalating a campaign that has been rejected by multiple federal courts and faces resistance from Republican-led states as well,” according to Democracy Docket, a group that works to protect voting rights.

Trump claimed back in late 2020, the last year of his first term, that he had the authority to issue an executive order related to mail-in voting for the 2020 elections — which he would then lose. But the Constitution states that control of elections lies with the states. As the GOP works to place hurdles in front of voting, Democrats worked to make voting easier.

In March 2021, President Biden signed an executive order calling on federal agencies to expand voting access as part of the Biden Administration’s effort “to promote and defend the right to vote for all Americans who are legally entitled to participate in elections.”

Trump’s focus is clearly on altering the November 2026 midterm elections. Trump’s polling numbers and the elections and special elections that have taken place around the U.S. over the last year clearly indicate that Republicans are about to be hit by a blue wave of Democratic victories.

Lauren Victoria Burke is an independent investigative journalist and the founder of Black Virginia News. She is a political analyst who appears on #RolandMartinUnfiltered and hosts the show LAUREN LIVE on YouTube @LaurenVictoriaBurke. She can be contacted at LBurke007@gmail.com and on twitter at @LVBurke