Yifei Yang ’23 was awarded the Jackson Distinguished Alumni Award at the First Amendment Clinic’s pre-semester Bootcamp, held on August 23, 2025.  The award is given to a member of the First Amendment Clinic’s alumni network who makes an extraordinary contribution to Clinic work after graduating.

Yifei Yang ’23

Yang has been a key player in several major litigations after graduation, including the Clinic’s ongoing lawsuit on behalf of The Reporter, a Catskills-based news outlet suing Delaware County, New York, for retaliatory conduct in withdrawing its designation as an official newspaper for the county and for allegedly gagging employees from speaking to the press. Yang also helped to craft the complaint and briefing in a lawsuit brought by the news outlet The Intercept against the Arizona Attorney General’s Office and the Transaction Record Analysis Center, which seeks information related to the logging of hundreds of millions of wire transfers sent to or from Mexico and border states.

“Yifei has done a tremendous amount of important work for the Clinic since graduating, said Associate Director Heather Murray. “And she has done it with good spirit and the type of collaborative attitude we seek to foster in our Clinic.”

In accepting the award before current Clinic students and faculty, Yang said she was grateful for the opportunity to work on cases furthering free speech and a vibrant, independent press. “My time with the Clinic was a highlight of my law school career,” said Yang. “I’m grateful for the opportunity to continue working on these important matters.”

“Our Clinic always hopes to inspire our alumni to pursue careers in the First Amendment field,” says Clinic Director Mark Jackson. “But we are equally excited to have our former students take on pro bono matters with the Clinic even as they pursue law careers in other disciplines. We are creating a cadre of First Amendment warriors.”