Columbia University Honors Professor Elora Mukherjee With Faculty Service Award
The award recognizes Mukherjee, who is founder and director of the Law School’s Immigrants’ Rights Clinic, for her extraordinary and creative voluntary service that has contributed significantly to the university’s inclusion and belonging efforts.
The Office of the Vice Provost for Faculty Advancement has named Elora Mukherjee, Jerome L. Greene Clinical Professor of Law, the recipient of the 2026 Columbia University Faculty Service Award, which honors full-time faculty who have demonstrated sustained commitment to the university’s inclusion and belonging efforts and have a record of innovative and impactful service. As director of the Law School’s Immigrants’ Rights Clinic, which she founded in 2014, Mukherjee and her students have provided pro bono representation for hundreds of asylum seekers, immigrants, and children and adults detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“I am grateful to be recognized with this award, and I am grateful to be part of an institution that values service,” says Mukherjee. “I feel extraordinarily lucky to teach at Columbia University.”
Daniel Abebe, Dean and Lucy G. Moses Professor of Law, says Mukherjee’s service is distinguished not only by its breadth but by its constancy. “Year after year, she has chosen to shoulder essential work that is time-consuming, emotionally taxing, and often invisible,” he says. “Through her unwavering dedication to her clients, students, and the institution, she embodies the highest ideals of faculty service. Her service is courageous and profoundly consequential.”
On campus, Mukherjee serves on Columbia University’s Committee on Forced Migration and collaborates regularly with the Office of Student Life to advise students. “I am grateful to connect with colleagues from across the university who care deeply about forced migration issues, who study these issues, teach about them, and work to ameliorate what may seem like intractable challenges,” she says. “Together, we are trying to make a difference on both the micro level—by, for example, supporting individuals on our campus—and the macro level—by, for example, considering and responding to the root causes of forced migration.”
Mukherjee has organized numerous “Know Your Rights” support sessions and spoken at public events to equip the Columbia community to engage thoughtfully with the legal, constitutional, and human dimensions of immigration policy. “‘Know Your Rights’ sessions should not be necessary for our campus community,” she says. “We are living through a hellish time of immigration enforcement that shockingly targets even students on campus. Through each session, we try to empower people to understand their rights and how they might protect themselves, their loved ones, and fellow community members.”
Colleagues on Columbia Law School’s faculty say Mukherjee is inspiring. “Elora is a force for good who models excellence and compassion for the entire faculty and student body,” says Josh Gupta-Kagan, Edward Ross Aranow Clinical Professor of Law. “Her collaborative spirit is evident in her efforts to mobilize immigrants’ rights advocates nationwide, turning her service to the broader community into a national call for action.”
“Elora’s work is a constant reminder of the profound impact legal academia can have on the real world,” says Lynnise Pantin ’03, Pritzker Pucker Family Clinical Professor of Transactional Law and vice dean for experiential education. “She is not just a professor but a professional and personal role model who energizes those around her with her unparalleled energy and selfless commitment.”
Beyond campus, Mukherjee and her clinic represent children and families who are in detention or facing deportation, including more than 80 children and their parents who have been held in the family detention center in Dilley, Texas, over the past year. The clinic’s efforts have led to the release of dozens of clients. Mukherjee recently testified on the detention and mass deportation of migrant children before U.S. senators at a spotlight forum and at a hearing held by the House Judiciary Committee of the Alaska Legislature. She regularly writes for and speaks to the media about the effects of family detention and mass deportation, including ABC News, NBC News, The New Yorker, and The New York Times.
Mukherjee will be presented with the award at Columbia University’s Commencement, to be held on May 20.
