Kate Bass L’21

Originally from the swingstate of Colorado, Kate is passionate about democracy and worker struggles in the United States and Latin America. Before law school, Kate was a Program Officer at the National Democratic Institute (NDI), where her portfolio focused on women’s political participation and parliamentary strengthening in Haiti. Before NDI, Kate worked for Project Vote to launch its Nonprofit Partners Initiative, which sought to make the United States electorate more representative by supporting health and human services nonprofit organizations to assist their clients to register to vote. Prior to Project Vote, Kate served as the Haiti Program Manager with AMURTEL in Haiti, where she managed grassroots programs with women and adolescent girls living in internally displaced persons camps and rural communities. Kate caught the community organizing bug while serving as a Field Organizer with President Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign in her hometown of Denver.

Kate graduated from Middlebury College in 2012 with a B.A. in Anthropology. While at Middlebury, Kate helped to found a student organization that supports local migrant farm workers and their families and served as a member of program staff with Amigos de las Américas, a nonprofit organization building youth leadership and community development in Latin America, in Nicaragua and Mexico.

In her first year at Penn Law, Kate completed internships with the International Development Law Organization and the Migrant Farm Worker Division of Colorado Legal Services. Kate currently serves as the President of the Democracy Law Project and Fieldwork Director of the International Human Rights Advocates. Kate is also a Teaching Assistant to the first-year contracts class, helping to deepen doctrinal conversations about power, race, and gender. Next summer, Kate will intern with the Centro de los Derechos del Migrante, working across borders for justice for farm workers in the United States and Mexico.