Manpreet Monica Singh has been a practicing lawyer for 20 years and has tried over 100 cases. According to her website, she is involved with several local, state, and national civil rights organizations.
On Friday, Manpreet Monica Singh has sworn in as a Texas’ Harris County Civil Court judge at Law No. 4. “Mama, we did it! It is a “true honor” to serve as a Sikh civil court judge in Harris County.
In a packed courtroom, Indian American Judge Ravi Sandill, Texas’ first south Asian judge, presided over the ceremony.
Monica’s father, an architect, migrated to the U.S. in the 1970s. Her campaign website says, “Her father, A.J. immigrated to the U.S. as an architect in the early 1970s after being issued a green card following the Immigration Act of 1965. As a young, turbaned Sikh and a then bachelor, he followed work wherever regardless of where it would take him.”
Her parents ran a small printing business. According to her campaign website, they have “faced blatant discrimination time and time again.”
Manpreet Monica Singh grew up in Houston and attended the University of Texas at Austin before graduating from the South Texas College of Law.
“As a woman of colour, she is all too familiar with systems of inequality and is sympathetic to the difficulties that the average American faces,” according to her campaign website.
Singh has been a practicing lawyer for 20 years and has tried over 100 cases. According to her website, she is involved with many local, state, and national civil rights organizations.
She also served on the boards of the Texas Lyceum, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the Sikh Coalition.
Manpreet Monica Singh also received a national Passion of Excellence Award.
She was runner-up for Houston Young Lawyers Association Most Outstanding Attorney in 2010 and the South Asian Bar Association Distinguished Member Award Winner in 2017.
Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said:
“It was a proud day for the Sikh Community, but also a proud day for all people of Colour who see the Diversity of the City of Houston in the Diversity of the Court.”
At the oath ceremony,
Manpreet Monica Singh said, “It means a lot to me because I represent H-town (nickname for Houston) the most, so for it to be us, I’m happy for it,” she said at the oath ceremony.
“It’s a really big moment for the Sikh community,” Sandill said.
“When they see someone of colour, someone a little different, they know that possibility is available to them. Manpreet is not only an ambassador for Sikhs, but she’s an ambassador for all women of colour,” he said.