GAME-CHANGING GIFT

Game-Changing Gift to Expand Immigration Clinic

Longtime supporter Audrey Irmas establishes Gould’s first named clinical professorship

By Gilien Silsby USC Gould School of Law established its first named clinical law professorship with a generous $1.5 million gift from longtime supporter Audrey M. Irmas, whose philanthropic commitment to women and children is well-known throughout California.

Professor Niels Frenzen, founding director of the USC Gould Immigration Clinic, will be installed as the first Sydney M. and Audrey M. Irmas Endowed Clinical Professor. The gift will expand the Immigration Clinic’s work and student participation in advocacy and representation of immigration clients.

“Audrey Irmas has been a steadfast supporter of USC and the Gould School of Law for many decades,” said Dean Andrew Guzman in a statement announcing the gift. “We are deeply grateful to have such a committed member of the Trojan Family supporting a critical need for our clinics at the law school.”

Four generations of Irmas’ family attended USC, including her husband, Sydney ’55, and grandson Jared Irmas ’13 who both graduated from the law school. Daughter Deborah Irmas graduated in ’72 with a degree in fine arts and later taught art history.

“I am thrilled to support the work of USC Gould’s Immigration Clinic,” said Audrey Irmas. “The clinic has helped many women and children successfully gain freedom and asylum after enduring unimaginable harms, while training some of USC Gould’s best and brightest future lawyers.”

The Immigration Clinic’s recent representation of two Tanzanian sisters, who were born with albinism and targeted for “magical” body parts in their small African village, grabbed the national spotlight recently. Under the direction of Frenzen, USC law students helped the teenagers win asylum. Today the girls are safe in Ojai, living with guardians and attending high school.

“This is one of hundreds of cases we are working on,” Frenzen said. “It’s cases like these that we are committed to.”

Frenzen, who launched the Immigration Clinic in 2000, said he is honored to hold the inaugural Sydney M. and Audrey M. Irmas Endowed Clinical Professorship. “The Immigration Clinic is aligned with Audrey Irmas’ mission of helping vulnerable populations. Her passion is truly inspirational,” he said.

In the past 17 years, nearly 200 USC Gould students participated in the Immigration Clinic, representing more than 1,000 clients. The clinic boasts an impressive 95 percent success rate.

More than half of the clinic’s clients are women and transgender women and a third are children, with the youngest being a 4-year-old boy from El Salvador.

The Irmases (pictured above) have been loyal supporters of USC and Gould. In 1997, the Audrey and Sydney Irmas Charitable Foundation endowed the Sydney M. Irmas Chair in Public Interest Law and Legal Ethics and funded the Irmas Fellowship in Public Interest Law and Legal Ethics. In 2012, Irmas funded the Audrey Irmas Clinical Teaching Fellowship. The Irmases have also supported the Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center and Keck School of Medicine.