CAMDEN — Kevin D. Walsh, associate director of the Fair Share Housing Center in Cherry Hill, has been selected to receive the 2012 Mary Philbrook Award from the Women’s Law Caucus at the Rutgers School of Law–Camden.
Walsh, a resident of Merchantville, will receive his award during a ceremony and reception from 6-9 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 4. He will be the 27th recipient of this honor from the Rutgers–Camden law school.
The award, named after the first woman admitted to the New Jersey Bar, recognizes the achievements of a leading advocate for civil rights, social justice and equality. Additionally, Philbrook is remembered for her instrumental role in establishing New Jersey’s first legal aid society.
Since joining the Fair Share Housing Center, New Jersey’s foremost advocacy group for affordable and integrated housing, in 2000, Walsh, 39, has worked to develop and enforce new mandates to local governments to encourage affordable housing, and to defend these gains against legislative and executive cutbacks. As a result, the number of suburban homes planned and developed for lower-income families has increased significantly.
Through successful litigation to protect the Mount Laurel doctrine and fair housing enforcement structures, Walsh and his colleagues also helped to extend coverage of open public records laws, increase availability of attorneys’ fees in public interest cases, and establish favorable law concerning constitutional and statutory limits on gubernatorial authority.
As counsel to New Jerseyans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, Walsh sued to block lethal injections, leading to a moratorium on executions in New Jersey. In 2007, he helped to secure legislative repeal of the state’s death penalty.
Walsh serves on the Board of Catholic Charities for the Diocese of Camden. On Aug. 2 the Racial Justice Commission, Diocese of Camden, on which he serves, honored him for “extraordinary efforts in promoting social justice.”
In a 2011 interview with the Catholic Star Herald, Walsh said, “Catholic social teachings declare that we are not to be indifferent to poverty, hunger and people living in places that are poor and segregated.”
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