Sherrilyn Ifill
President and Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund
In office
2012–2022
Preceded byJohn Payton
Succeeded byJanai Nelson
Personal details
Born (1962-12-17) December 17, 1962 (age 61)
Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.
RelativesGwen Ifill (cousin)
EducationVassar College (BA)
New York University (JD)

Sherrilyn Ifill (born December 17, 1962) is an American lawyer and the Vernon E. Jordan, Jr., Esq. Endowed Chair in Civil Rights at Howard University. She is a law professor and former president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.[1] She was the Legal Defense Fund's seventh president since Thurgood Marshall founded the organization in 1940. Ifill is a nationally recognized expert on voting rights and judicial selection.[2] In 2021, Time named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world on its annual Time 100 list.

Early life and education

Sherrilyn Ifill was born on December 17, 1962, in Baltimore, Maryland[3] to Lester and Myrtle. She is the youngest of 10 children.[4] Her mother passed away when she was 6 years old.[4] She graduated from Hillcrest High School.[5] Ifill has a B.A. from Vassar College and a J.D. from New York University School of Law.[1]

She and the late PBS NewsHour anchor Gwen Ifill were first cousins. Their family immigrated to the U.S. from Barbados,[6] with Sherrilyn's and Gwen's fathers, who were brothers, both becoming African Methodist Episcopal ministers.[7]

Career

While in law school, Ifill interned for Judge A. Leon Higginbotham Jr. the first summer and at the United Nations Centre for Human Rights the second summer.[2] Her first job out of law school was a one-year fellowship with the American Civil Liberties Union in New York.[8] She then served as assistant counsel at the NAACP's Legal Defense Fund, litigating Voting Rights Act cases including the landmark Houston Lawyers' Association v. Attorney General of Texas.[8] In 1993, she joined the faculty of the University of Maryland Law School, where she taught for two decades.[9][10] She is the author of On the Courthouse Lawn: Confronting the Legacy of Lynching in the 21st Century,[11][12] a 2008 finalist for the Hurston-Wright Legacy Award for Nonfiction.[13] In 2013, she became the Legal Defense Fund's president and director-counsel.[14] She is the Steven and Maureen Klinsky Visiting Professor of Practice for Leadership and Progress at Harvard Law School, 2023-2024.[15]

Ifill regularly appears in the media for her expertise on topics like affirmative action,[16][17] policing,[18] judicial nominees,[19] and the Supreme Court.[20] Ifill has announced that she will step down from the role of president and director-counsel in the spring of 2022, to be replaced by Janai Nelson, currently the associate director-counsel at LDF.[21] She joined the Ford Foundation as a Senior Fellow in June 2022.[22] Her writing appears in The New York Review of Books, Salon, The Washington Post, and The New York Times.[23][24][25][26][27]

In June 2023, Ifill was appointed Howard Law School's inaugural Vernon E. Jordan, Jr., Esq. Endowed Chair in Civil Rights. In 2024, she will launch the 14th Amendment Center for Law & Democracy.[28][29]

Personal life

Ifill is married to Ivo Knobloch.[4] They have three children.[3]

Honors and awards

In 2016, Ifill won the Society of American Law Teachers Great Teacher Award.[30]

Ifill was an American Academy of Arts and Sciences Fellow in 2019.[31] In 2020, Glamour magazine gave her a Woman of the Year award, calling her a "civil rights superhero."[32] In 2021, Ifill was included on the Time 100, Time's annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world.[33]

She was selected as the New York State Bar Association 2023 Gold Medal Award recipient, which cited her history as a "tireless warrior for civil rights".[34]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b Thompson, Krissah (January 22, 2013). "Sherrilyn Ifill is to be head of NAACP legal defense and educational fund". The Washington Post. Retrieved July 15, 2016.
  2. ^ a b "Alumnus/Alumna of the Month | NYU School of Law". www.law.nyu.edu. Retrieved February 19, 2017.
  3. ^ a b "Sherrilyn Ifill's Biography". The HistoryMakers. Retrieved June 19, 2020.
  4. ^ a b c Thompson, Krissah (January 22, 2013). "Sherrilyn Ifill is to be head of NAACP legal defense and educational fund". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved June 19, 2020.
  5. ^ "Shaping the Civil Rights Discourse: Sherrilyn Ifill '84 - Vassar, the Alumnae/i Quarterly". vq.vassar.edu. Retrieved June 19, 2020.
  6. ^ Alcindor, Yamiche (November 19, 2016). "Thousands of Mourners Celebrate Gwen Ifill's Tenacity and Grace". The New York Times. Retrieved February 1, 2017.
  7. ^ Fineman, Howard (November 20, 2016). "Gwen Ifill's Funeral Was A Revival Meeting For America". HuffPost.
  8. ^ a b Okpalaoka, Ugonna (November 19, 2012). "Sherrilyn Ifill named head of NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund". The Grio. Retrieved July 15, 2016.
  9. ^ Edney, Hazel Trice (November 26, 2012). "NAACP Legal Defense Fund Names Sherrilyn Ifill Next President". Politic365. Archived from the original on April 10, 2018. Retrieved July 15, 2016.
  10. ^ "Closing Statements" (interview with Sherrilyn Ifill). NYU Law Magazine. 2013. Retrieved April 11, 2020.
  11. ^ Levy, Peter B. "On the Courthouse Lawn: Confronting the Legacy of Lynching in the Twenty-First Century." The Journal of Southern History 75.2 (2009): 474.
  12. ^ "Nonfiction Book Review: On the Courthouse Lawn: Confronting the Legacy of Lynching in the Twenty-First Century by Sherrilyn A. Ifill, Author Beacon Press (MA) $25.95 (204p) ISBN 978-0-8070-0987-1". Publishers Weekly. January 29, 2007. Retrieved January 13, 2021.
  13. ^ "The Arena: Sherrilyn Ifill Bio". Politico. Archived from the original on May 27, 2009. Retrieved July 15, 2016.
  14. ^ "Sherrilyn Ifill | LDF President and Director Counsel". Legal Defense Fund. Retrieved January 12, 2023.
  15. ^ "Sherrilyn Ifill". Harvard Law School.
  16. ^ Hefling, Kimberly; Gerstein, Josh (June 23, 2016). "Supreme Court upholds college affirmative action program". Politico. Retrieved July 15, 2016.
  17. ^ Brown, Emma; Douglas-Gabriel, Danielle (June 23, 2016). "Affirmative action advocates shocked – and thrilled – by Supreme Court's ruling in University of Texas case". The Washington Post. Retrieved July 15, 2016.
  18. ^ Rubenstein, Samuel (November 21, 2014). "BPR Interview: Sherrilyn Ifill". Brown Political Review. Retrieved July 15, 2016.
  19. ^ Burke, Lauren Victoria (March 18, 2016). "Garland Nomination: Black Advocates Want Him Vetted". NBC News. Retrieved July 15, 2016.
  20. ^ Barnes, Robert (May 1, 2016). "Scalia's death affecting next term, too? Pace of accepted cases at Supreme Court slows". The Washington Post. Retrieved July 15, 2016.
  21. ^ "Sherrilyn Ifill to Step Down After Nearly a Decade of LDF Leadership; Longtime Deputy Janai Nelson to Lead LDF" (PDF). NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. LDF Media. November 17, 2021. Retrieved November 17, 2021.
  22. ^ "Sherrilyn Ifill joins Ford Foundation as a Senior Fellow". Ford Foundation. June 21, 2022. Retrieved January 12, 2023.
  23. ^ Ifill, Sherrilyn. "When Diversity Matters | Sherrilyn Ifill". ISSN 0028-7504. Retrieved January 12, 2023.
  24. ^ "Sherrilyn Ifill's Articles at Salon.com". www.salon.com. Retrieved January 12, 2023.
  25. ^ Ifill, Sherrilyn (September 22, 2016). "Tackle racial bias in policing at the root". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved January 12, 2023.
  26. ^ Ifill, Sherrilyn A. (March 2, 2022). "Opinion | Who's Afraid of Ketanji Brown Jackson?". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved January 12, 2023.
  27. ^ Ifill, Sherrilyn A. (February 12, 2021). "Opinion | Lawyers Enabled Trump's Worst Abuses". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved January 12, 2023.
  28. ^ "Civil Rights Lawyer Sherrilyn Ifill Appointed Inaugural Vernon Jordan Endowed Chair in Civil Rights". The Dig at Howard University. June 21, 2023. Retrieved June 21, 2023.
  29. ^ Leingang, Rachel (January 7, 2024). "Sherrilyn Ifill on a Trump win: 'We will cease to be a democracy'". The Guardian. Retrieved January 7, 2024.
  30. ^ Society of American Law Teachers (May 16, 2016). "Update on SALT Activities." Retrieved February 19, 2017.
  31. ^ "2019 Fellows and International Honorary Members with their affiliations at the time of election". members.amacad.org. Retrieved March 9, 2020.
  32. ^ John-John Williams IV. "Sherrilyn Ifill Honored as Civil Rights Superhero." Baltimore Sun, October 20, 2020, p. A2.
  33. ^ Specker, Lawrence (September 15, 2021). "Time's '100 most influential' list includes trio with Alabama ties". AL.com. Retrieved November 10, 2021.
  34. ^ "NYSBA Selects Prominent Civil Rights Attorney Sherrilyn Ifill for Association’s Highest Honor" David Alexander, New York State Bar Association. January 6, 2023. Retrieved January 8, 2023.

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