The ACLU honored Davis High School Senior Kiran Savage-Sangwan with its most prestigious youth award, the 2006 ACLU Youth Activist Scholarship. Savage-Sangwan is among nine students nationwide selected to receive the $4,000 grant, which will be applied to her college tuition in the fall.

The ACLU Youth Activist Scholarship was established by an anonymous donor in 1999 to reward young men and women who are active participants in a civil rights or civil liberties struggle while in high school. Savage-Sangwan’s activism in her school and community made her an ideal candidate for the scholarship.

“Kiran lives and breathes civil liberties action,” said Eveline Chang, Director of the ACLU-NC’s Friedman Education Project. “She exemplifies the ideal qualities of an activist: intense commitment to justice, boundless energy and passion, awareness and respect for others, and outstanding organizing and facilitation skills.”

Savage-Sangwan first became a member of the ACLU when she was 13, as she was confronted by the degradation of civil liberties in her community after 9/11. In high school, she joined the Youth Activist Committee (YAC) of the ACLU of Northern California’s Howard A. Friedman Education Project. During her time in the YAC, Savage-Sangwan organized and led workshops on student’s rights with the police, unequal education in California, and military recruitment in schools. She also participated in YAC summer field investigations on sexism and juvenile justice, using the knowledge she acquired through these trips to organize protests and events, write letters to authorities, and create educational films.

Savage-Sangwan is also a dedicated activist at Davis High School. As a leader in the school’s Gay Straight Alliance, she organized the high school’s first Transgender Day of Remembrance, as well as a Day of Silence to protest the silencing of all marginalized groups on campus. She also co-founded a students’ rights organization called the DHS Student Union. Through this organization, Savage-Sangwan has changed major school policies. She prompted the Davis school district to allow students to decide whether they would release their personal information to military recruiters, and was instrumental in the creation of a written discipline policy that would be applied to fairly to all students. Savage-Sangwan also led a successful campaign to improve the conditions in the bathrooms at the school.