Barbara Y. Phillips

Barbara Y. Phillips "is President of Serendipity Adventures, Inc., doing business as Jane Hamill Boutique in Chicago, IL. She is also a consultant to organizations committed to effectiveness and innovation in advancing social justice. She was formerly a Program Officer of the Ford Foundation in the Human Rights unit of the Peace and Social Justice Program with the responsibility to craft and manage the portfolio of grants and other activities nationally and globally related to women’s rights and gender equity. Prior to joining the foundation, she was an Associate Professor of Law at the University of Mississippi School of Law, partner in the San Francisco law firm Rosen & Phillips, staff attorney with the national Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, and Special Assistant Attorney General in the Office of the Minnesota Attorney General. Upon appointment by the federal district court in 1987, Ms. Phillips monitored for seven years the compliance of the San Francisco Fire Department with court orders and a broad consent decree requiring institutional change to resolve claims of race and sex discrimination in hiring, promotions, and conditions of employment and resulting in the hiring of the first women firefighters.

"Her board memberships include the African Women's Development Fund - USA, The Center for the Advancement of Women, and the National Center for Human Rights Education. She also serves on the Twink Frey Visiting Social Activist Advisory Council of the University of Michigan, the Regional Advisory Board of the Southern Rural Black Women’s Initiative, and is a member of the Safe State Council, a domestic violence initiative of the Chicago Foundation for Women.

"Educational background: B.A. ,Macalester College; J.D., Northwestern University School of Law; J.S.M., Stanford Law School where she also taught. Her publications include The Road Traveled, The Road Ahead: Ford Foundation Support for Women’s Rights in Women, Philanthropy and Social Change: Journey To a Just Society, ed. Elayne Clift (UPNE Press 2005); and numerous articles in academic journals."