Meet ben

A dad

an attorney

a former teacher

AN anc cOMMISSIONER
& Chair of Anc 3D

A Progressive WITH IDEAS

As an ANC Commissioner, I have been a passionate advocate for affordable housing, investments in public education, improved public transit, especially for areas poorly served by Metrorail, and safer streets for pedestrians, cyclists, and drivers.  

I grew up in Gainesville, Florida the youngest child of professors whose jobs required that they live long distances away from each other.  From kindergarten until the end of middle school, my parents taught history at two different universities in two different states. My mom was a not-yet-tenured professor at the University of Florida and my dad was a professor at the University of Connecticut.  During the academic year, my dad would commute every other week to Florida for the weekend.  This dynamic clearly played a role in fueling significant behavioral issues during my childhood.  

Throughout elementary school, I struggled to meet behavioral expectations. I refused to follow directions, I would shut down during tests, I would speak out of turn, I would throw fits. I would shout down adults who tried to discipline me, and I would try to keep them away by swinging sticks and hitting. I was rude and I refused to apologize. I took up too much space and too much time. Things were better when I wasn’t there. As a result, suspensions were frequent and I was often forced to sit at a desk up against the chalkboard or somewhere else far from peers.

By 6th grade, I had one expulsion under my belt and had cycled through 5 different schools, two public schools, one Jewish day school, one local private school, and finally a Waldorf-inspired school. The suspensions continued, although the volatility, stubbornness, and other behavioral issues of the early years gradually subsided. My parents were able to keep looking for different educational environments, which required both research and resources, and I shudder to think what our experience would have been like had we been unable to do so.

In fourth grade, the principal at the fourth elementary school I attended confidently told me and my mom I would end up in jail. I suppose he intended to try to “scare us straight” before he expelled me. I grew up becoming accustomed to seeing my mom be shamed and browbeaten over my behavior. My father was only home every other weekend during the academic year so the burden of sitting through conference after conference and having to drop everything to pick me up fell on her. I still remember sitting in the backseat as she broke down and cried after yet another suspension. It took a long time for me to find my footing but I eventually did, in large part because I had several incredible teachers who believed in and encouraged me despite the outbursts or the fits of aggression. It wasn’t true, they discovered, that I couldn’t read—just that I found filling in bubbles hopelessly boring and did not much like being told what to do. 

Good teachers can change a child’s life. They did for me. 

I was very lucky. We had sufficient resources to search and find a non-traditional learning environment where I was ultimately successful. Statistics show that my trajectory would likely have been different had my parents not been white academics. There are so many children in our city dealing with similar issues, lashing out or shutting down as a result of trauma and circumstances far more dire than mine, and we routinely fail to meet their needs year after year after year. We label them. We give up on them. And we eventually push them out and act as if it wasn’t on us. These kids don’t need drilling and testing, they need love and support.

Kids are more than data points defined by test scores, which means that our schools must meet the needs of the whole child. The pandemic has shined a spotlight on the importance of attending to our kids’ social and emotional well-being.  But well before 2020, there was a need for more school-based mental health services and for robust trauma-informed professional development. If elected, both will be a personal priority for me. 

After high school, I went to Duke University, studying theater, political science, and history. In 2011, I moved to Texas to teach 5th grade social studies and English language arts at a Title I elementary school in Houston.  In Houston, I met my wife Karuna, also a new teacher at a Houston middle school.

I left the classroom to go to Columbia Law School, later transferring to Yale Law School at the end of my first year. 

In law school, I discovered a passion for property law, specifically issues relating to land use policy in an urban context, where limited space can sometimes pit two “good uses” of urban space against one another.  My passion and interest in these issues partly prompted my decision to run for a seat on ANC3D.   

After graduating, I practiced law for several years in the New York and DC offices of the law firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP, focusing primarily on anti-corruption and antirust matters.  I am so thankful that the firm also allowed me to maintain a robust an active pro bono practice. I have represented pro bono clients in a wide range of matters, including cases relating to housing conditions, fair housing laws, voting rights, and the Trump Administration’s efforts to weaken the Affordable Care Act.  Every year of my time as a practicing attorney in DC, I have been recognized with High Honors by the DC Bar in the Capital Pro Bono Honor Roll, which celebrates attorneys who give substantial time to pro bono clients.

I am proudest of my years of work on behalf of a New York City community organization and two of its tenant organizers, who were defending against a brazen SLAPP lawsuit brought by the owner of a project-based Section 8 housing community where they had been organizing tenants.  Not only were the claims dismissed, but the landlord was found liable for violating New York’s anti-SLAPP law and ordered to pay a substantial judgment, both unusual given the demanding nature of New York’s (now amended) anti-SLAPP law.

Another highlight came in 2020, when I co-authored an amicus brief with former U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch and other Paul, Weiss attorneys advancing arguments in support of three states seeking to compel recognition of the Equal Rights Amendment’s ratification.  

In addition to my work on the ANC, I am currently director of policy at a public affairs firm, where I focus on legislative and regulatory issues at the federal level.