FEATURES ::
‘Continuing the Fight’: NELSON ’96 TAKES OVER AS TOP NAACP LAWYER When UCLA Law alumna Janai Nelson ’96 was named the next president and directorcounsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF) in November, it was the latest milestone in an inspiring career that has taken her from Westwood to the front lines of civil rights litigation nationwide. significant threats to our democracy. We are challenging bans on critical race theory — a laudable analytical approach that is being used as a pretext to undermine efforts to create equity and celebrate our country’s diversity. We are also fighting voter suppression through litigation, advocacy, and organizing, as well as defending the right to protest. At LDF we are keenly aware of the interrelation and mutual reinforcing nature of each of these efforts to silence the will of people and the use of anti-Black racism to do it.
Sherrilyn Ifill and Janai Nelson
A longtime member of the LDF legal team, Nelson has helped lead cases involving voting rights and diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, among many others. She will continue those and related efforts when she officially takes over for Sherrilyn Ifill and becomes the eighth LDF president and director-counsel — a position first held by Thurgood Marshall — in the spring. Nelson is a former professor at St. John’s University School of Law, a leading scholar of election law, and an eminent voice on civil rights in the national media. She previously served as a Fulbright Scholar who studied political disenfranchisement in Ghana, and clerked for two federal judges. She was UCLA Law’s Fall 2021 Margaret Levy Public Interest Fellow, delivering the lecture “Fighting Racial Injustice in a Vacuum of Truth” in October. In this Q&A, she discusses her incredible track record and vision for the road ahead. Following several high-profile cases — including a successful voter I.D. law challenge in Veasey v. Abbott and then NUL v. Trump, which caused the Trump Administration to rescind its executive order that squelched workplace diversity and inclusion training — what are you working on now?
I’m continuing the fight to ensure that both our First Amendment freedoms and the principles of equal protection and due process embedded in the Fourteenth Amendment are safeguarded from the assault on truth that is presently underway and one of the most
14 UCLA LAW MAGAZINE | FALL 2021
You and the LDF obviously take a highly strategic approach to policy and litigation. Can you explain a little about your goals, and how you personally think about the challenge of how to use the law and legal systems to prevent harms and promote justice?
The law remains a powerful tool in the fight for justice, and there is still a lot of work around racial justice in our society that the law can advance. It is important to think about the law both as a corrective instrument and as a device to use affirmatively to codify norms and policies that bring us closer to our constitutional ideals. Whether it is challenging hair policies that are used to discriminate against Black people in school or the workplace simply because of the texture or formation of their hair or advocating for a racial impact analysis in connection with a new piece of legislation, we can use the law to protect dignity and humanity and to bring us closer to becoming a society that is as intentional about equality as it has been about other values that define our identity. You recently returned to UCLA Law, albeit virtually, to join a panel on critical race theory and to deliver the Margaret Levy Public Interest Lecture. First of all, thank you! It’s always wonderful to welcome alumni back, and your words have been so powerful for students to hear. How does it feel to be back, even in an online format?
Thank you. It has been lovely to return to UCLA Law, although I wish it could have been in person. Nonetheless, I had an opportunity to meet with students and to connect with faculty. It was also rewarding to be able to present a lecture on the vacuum
