SHERRILYN IFILL
Sherrilyn Ifill is an influential American lawyer, civil rights advocate, and legal scholar. Born in 1962 in New York City, the youngest of 10 children, her family immigrated to the U.S. from Barbados, and her mother died when she was just 6 years old.
She went on to earn an A.B. from Vassar College and a Juris Doctor from New York University School of Law.
Following law school, she served as a fellow at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in New York and spent five years as an assistant counsel litigating voting rights cases at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. She went on to become its seventh president and director-counsel from 2013 to 2022, only the second woman to hold the position.
Thurgood Marshall, a trailblazing civil rights lawyer and the first Black justice on the U.S. Supreme Court, founded the Legal Defense Fund in 1940. Originally part of the NAACP, it became a fully separate organization in 1957.
The Legal Defense Fund has historically acted as the legal arm of the civil rights movement, representing John Lewis, the Freedom Riders, Rosa Parks, and many other grassroots and social justice activists. During the nine years of Sherrilyn’s leadership, the LDF grew fivefold in staff, budget, and endowment.
Prior to leading the LDF, she served as a professor for 20 years at the University of Maryland School of Law in Baltimore, where she taught civil procedure and constitutional law and created a series of innovative clinical offerings in environmental justice, reentry, and reparations.
In fall 2023, Harvard Law School invited her to serve as a Distinguished Professor of Practice, where she taught a 14th Amendment seminar. The following spring she taught a similar seminar at Howard Law School.
Sherrilyn served as a Ford Foundation Fellow at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in the summer of 2023, where she undertook a project focused on exploring the values of the 14th Amendment through artistic expression.
She is widely recognized for her eloquent advocacy, strategic litigation approach to civil rights issues, and her ability to connect historical racial injustices with contemporary legal challenges.
In interviews, she has stressed the importance of demanding that your country abide by and live up to the words and spirit of its foundational documents. The 14th Amendment to the Constitution guarantees everyone in this country equal protection under the law.
Demanding these things, demanding that your country fulfill its promises, is truly the height of patriotism, as it demonstrates a willingness to fight for the betterment of your country rather than merely displaying blind loyalty.
