Kaji Spellman Douša (born August 22) is an American Christian minister and immigration rights activist who served as the chair of the New Sanctuary Coalition NYC.

Biography

Douša is the senior pastor of the

Park Avenue Christian Church The Park Avenue Christian Church is located at 1010 Park Avenue at 85th Street, on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. The building houses the Park Avenue Christian Church (The Park) congregation of the Disciples of Christ and United Church of Christ ...

in Manhattan. From 2018-2020 Douša served as president of the alumni board for

Yale Divinity School Yale Divinity School (YDS) is one of the twelve graduate and professional schools of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Congregationalist theological education was the motivation at the founding of Yale, and the professional school has ...

. Douša was born on August 22 in the United States to civil rights activists Karen and

A.B. Spellman Alfred Bennett Spellman (born 1935) is a poet, music critic, and arts administrator. Considered a part of the Black Arts movement, he first received attention for his book of poems entitled ''The Beautiful Days'' (1965). In 1966, he published a b ...

. She is the youngest of their two children and is half-sister to

Malcolm Spellman Malcolm Spellman is an American screenwriter and producer best known for his work on ''Empire'' (2015) and ''The Falcon and the Winter Soldier'' (2021). Career In March 2010, Spellman started his career by writing the screenplay for the film ' ...

. Douša is married and has one child. Pastor Douša (pronounced “doe-sha”) is the first woman to serve as the Senior Pastor of her 212-year-old congregation, th
Park Avenue Christian Church
in Manhattan. In the summer of 2020, she helped to lead many of the rallies and marches organized in response to the murders of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd. In the midst of the uprisings, she and a group of mostly Black clergy women built a new, member-based organization calle
Daughters 4 Justice (D4J)
to constructively work with and hold to account lawmakers and the NYPD in order to re-envision public safety in NYC. D4J’s basic premise is that a city structured around the safety of Black children will be safe for everyone. She is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and of Yale Divinity School, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree cum laude and a Master of Divinity degree, respectively. She serves o
Planned Parenthood Federation of America’s Clergy Advocacy Board
where she served on the 2020 U.S. Presidential endorsement committee for the Action Fund. Planned Parenthood regularly invites Pastor Kaji to speak a
national rallies
events and press appearances on its behalf. In 2017 Douša protested the detainment of immigrants, including that of New Sanctuary Coalition Executive Director Ravi Ragbir. In October 2018, Douša spoke at the protests against the Supreme Court nomination of Brett Kavanaugh, in support of fellow

Holton-Arms School Holton-Arms is an independent college-preparatory school for girls in grades 3–12, located in Bethesda, Maryland. As of the 2021–22 school year, there were 667 students and 94 faculty. Since 2007, Susanna Jones has been Head of School. The s ...

alumna

Christine Blasey Ford Christine Margaret Blasey Ford ( ; born November 1966) is an American professor of psychology at Palo Alto University and a research psychologist at the Stanford University School of Medicine. She specializes in designing statistical models f ...

, who had accused Kavanaugh of sexual assault. Her related sermon was subsequently featured in the ''

Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large na ...

''. In January 2019, upon her return to San Diego after ministering to migrants in Tijuana, she was stopped by

U.S. Customs and Border Protection United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is the largest federal law enforcement agency of the United States Department of Homeland Security. It is the country's primary border control organization, charged with regulating and facilit ...

agents at the

San Ysidro Port of Entry __NOTOC__ The San Ysidro Port of Entry (aka San Ysidro Land Port of Entry or San Ysidro LPOE) is the largest land border crossing between San Diego and Tijuana, and the fourth- busiest land border crossing in the world (second-busiest if one exclu ...

and held for questioning. Following, Douša alleges that she wa
put on a watch list
of more than 50 people who have worked on the migrant crisis currently developing at the U.S.-Mexico border, a process which she says led to an unlawful revoking of her Secure Electronic Network for Travelers Rapid Inspection pass. On July 2, 2019, Amnesty International called for an end to border surveillance programs, referencing Douša's case. In July 2019, Dousa filed the federal case '
Douša v. U.S.
'' against the

Department of Homeland Security The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is the U.S. federal executive department responsible for public security, roughly comparable to the interior or home ministries of other countries. Its stated missions involve anti-terr ...

alleging violation of her

First Amendment rights The First Amendment (Amendment I) to the United States Constitution prevents the government from making laws that regulate an establishment of religion, or that prohibit the free exercise of religion, or abridge the freedom of speech, the f ...

and the

Religious Freedom Restoration Act The Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993, Pub. L. No. 103-141, 107 Stat. 1488 (November 16, 1993), codified at through (also known as RFRA, pronounced "rifra"), is a 1993 United States federal law that "ensures that interests in religiou ...

. Co-counsel

Arnold & Porter Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP is an American multinational law firm. A white-shoe firm, Arnold & Porter is among the largest law firms in the world, by both revenue and by its number of lawyers. History Arnold & Porter was founded in 1946 ...

and Protect Democracy are representing her, led by Arnold & Porter partner
R. Stanton Jones
Over 850 religious leader
signed an open letter of support
for her lawsuit. Kaji Douša won her civil rights lawsuit against the federal government in March 2023.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dousa, Kaji 1978 births Living people People from Washington, D.C. African-American Christian clergy American Disciples of Christ United Church of Christ ministers University of Pennsylvania alumni Yale Divinity School alumni Immigrant rights activists 21st-century African-American people 20th-century African-American people