Sameer Jha

Background

About Sameer Jha

I am a 1L at Columbia Law School, where I'm involved with IP and entertainment law organizations. I graduated from Stanford in June 2024, receiving a B.S. in Symbolic Systems with distinction. At 14 years old, I founded The Empathy Alliance, dedicated to making schools safer and more inclusive for LGBTQ+ youth, and have grown it from a grassroots movement in Fremont, CA to an organization that has been internationally recognized. I’ve reached millions of people through partnerships with organizations like the Human Rights Campaign, GLAAD, and GLSEN, features in media like the New York Times, NPR, Disney Channel, and Teen Vogue, and my book Read This, Save Lives: A Teacher’s Guide to Creating Safer Classrooms for LGBTQ+ Students. In recent years, I have been invited to the White House three times by President Biden and have advised the White House and U.S. Departments on the needs of trans youth in schools. I was honored at the United Nations in Geneva as a Young Activists Summit Laureate, and received a grant to curate and distribute LGBTQ+ books representing diverse identities to schools and libraries in the US, where restrictions on such books make it difficult for students to see and accept themselves.