Judith Browne Dianis

Judith Browne Dianis is an American civil rights attorney and advocate for voting rights, education, housing and employment. She is the co-director of Advancement Project, a racial justice nonprofit based in Washington, D.C.

Background

Dianis graduated from Columbia University School of Law. She was awarded a Skadden Fellowship. She has served as an Adjunct Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center, and as a Tobias Simon Eminent Scholar at Florida State University Law School.

Prior to Advancement Project, she was Managing Attorney in the Washington, D.C. office of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc.

In 2000, Essence Magazine named Dianis one of^[1] "Thirty Women to Watch”. She regularly comments on education, voting rights and race on networks including MSNBC, CNN, and BET.

History with Advancement Project

Attorney Dianis was a part of Advancement Project’s inception in 1999,^[2] when it was co-founded by current Advancement Project co-director Penda Hair and several of their peers from the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc.

“We wanted a new model of what a civil rights group looks like,” Dianis told BET in 2012.^[3] “We support grassroots movements. We don’t just litigate. We believe that, to create change, we have to change hearts and minds. And we do that through communications and strategy.”

A longtime leader in the field of voter protection, Dianis has been particularly vigilant of suppressive tactics used on communities of color.

With Advancement Project, she litigated against the disenfranchisement of African-American voters during the 2000 presidential election in Florida. Later she filed one of the first-ever lawsuits to enforce the National Voter Registration Act, also known as the “Motor Voter” law, litigating on behalf of African-American Floridians after the election.

In 2004, Dianis sued to stop^[4] the Republican National Committee from engaging in potential voter suppression tactics in Ohio. These tactics included the RNC’s mass mailings to registered voters, designed so that unreturned or undeliverable mail could be used to challenge those voters’ names remaining on the registration rolls.

In 2005, with Loyola Law Clinic, Dianis and Advancement Project sued for “right to return^[5]” for displaced Katrina victims who were unable to return to New Orleans after the public housing they once lived in was labeled as condemned.

In 2008, she sued^[6] to ensure equitable allocation of voting machines in Virginia.

A leader in the campaign to make the "right to vote" an explicit, constitutional right in the U.S. Constitution, Dianis was awarded a Prime Movers Fellowship^[7] for her work in developing this campaign.

She is also a pioneer in the movement to dismantle the school-to-prison pipeline. She has authored several reports on the issue including: "Suspended: The Devastating Consequences of Zero Tolerance and School Discipline" and "Derailed: The Schoolhouse to Jailhouse Track". These reports detail the unnecessary criminalization of students by their schools, outlining how students of color are specifically affected. In 2014, in recognition of her work on these issues, Dianis was named a Black Male Achievement Social Innovator by the Leadership & Sustainability Institute.^[8]

In 2012, Dianis addressed Congress^[9] about the perils of the school-to-prison pipeline, saying:

“In recent years, we have seen increased rates of suspension, expulsion, and arrest because adult – and not student – behavior has changed. Adults are treating young people like criminals, and are responding to typical student behavior that has no bearing on safety with discipline that defies common sense. Schools have redefined developmentally appropriate behaviors as crimes. Pushing and shoving in the schoolyard is now a battery, and talking back is now disorderly conduct.”^[10]

Other affiliations

In 2014, as part of Advancement Project, she joined^[11] My Brother’s Keeper National Convening Council, a private sector initiative that acts as a support system for President Barack Obama’s My Brother’s Keeper. She sits on the board of FairTest, the National Center for Fair and Open Testing, and a founding convener^[12] of the Forum for Education and Democracy.

References

External links

• Advancement Project