Lectures
Marking 30 Years of Collaboration between the Yale Urban Design Workshop and the Dwight Neighborhood
Rocky Chin, Andrei Harwell, and Dean Deborah Berke in conversation on inclusion and the city
Rockwell (“Rocky”) Chin (MCP ‘71) is a member of the New York City Commission on Human Rights, appointed in July 2019 by Mayor Bill de Blasio and re-appointed by Mayor Eric Adams in 2024. In 2021, he was a recipient of the Yale Medal. Rocky served 25 years at the New York City Commission on Human Rights and the New York State Division of Human Rights. A founder of the Asian American Bar Association of New York(AABANY) and a former civil rights chair of the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association (NAPABA), Rocky was a past President of the Asian American Law Fund of New York, where he continues to serve on the board. He is a former member of the Executive Council (AARP New York) and the MFY Legal Services Board. He helped create the Asian American Studies course “Asian Americans, Civil Rights & the Law” and taught this course at several institutions including City College, NYU and Cornell Law School. Prior to attending law school (USC), he studied city planning at Yale’s School of Architecture (receiving his masters in city planning in 1971). He was part of the early history of the Asian American Students Association at Yale and became active in Chinatown while a graduate student in City Planning. Rocky helped found the Basement Workshop (an Asian American community planning/art & cultural center) in the early 70s.
Rocky is a founder of the Association of Asian American Yale Alumni (AAAYA) and serves on the Advisory Council of the Sonia and Celina Sotomayor Judicial Internship Program. Rocky and his wife are longtime residents of Manhattan’s Lower East Side.
