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<\/fbs-accordion>The Washington Post via Getty Images<\/small>
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In 2020 Glamour <\/em>dubbed Sherrilyn Ifill \u201ca civil rights superhero<\/a>\u201d which may seem like public relations hyperbole to some…but they likely don\u2019t know the force of nature that is Sherrilyn Ifill.<\/p>\n In 1988 when Sherrilyn Ifill began her career at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF) as a young civil rights lawyer litigating voting rights cases, the top grossing movie was Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, George Michael\u2019s Faith<\/em> topped the annual Billboard charts and Ronald Reagan was president. Five years later, Ifill left the historic organization to spend the next two decades teaching civil procedure and constitutional law to thousands of University of Maryland law students and writing On the Courthouse Work: Confronting the Legacy of Lynching in the Twenty-First Century <\/em>before rejoining the Thurgood Marshall-founded, non-partisan organization in 2013 as its seventh President and Director-Counsel.<\/p>\n During Ifill\u2019s near decade leading one of the nation\u2019s most revered civil and human rights institutions, she not only expanded its reach but also elevated its profile to bring LDF\u2019s work into mainstream conversation, tenaciously making the case that LDF\u2019s work is nothing less than defending and maintaining democracy. She did one more thing along the way\u2026. She got results.<\/p>\n Under Ifill\u2019s leadership, the organization achieved remarkable gains advancing civil rights with particular focus on voter suppression, inequity in education, economic disparities and racial discrimination in the criminal justice system. Some of LDF\u2019s recent accomplishments and ongoing work include the following:<\/p>\n \u00b7 Challenging<\/a> the Trump administration\u2019s \u201cExecutive Order (EO) on Combatting Race and Sex Stereotyping\u201d which placed unprecedented restrictions on diversity training. (The EO was later rescinded by the Biden-Harris administration.)<\/p>\n \u00b7 Combatting hair discrimination by fighting for the CROWN Act\u2014recently passed<\/a> by the House of Representatives\u2014to become law<\/a> in all 50 states. <\/p>\n \u00b7 Establishing the Thurgood Marshall Institute, a multidisciplinary center supporting research and targeted advocacy campaigns and housing LDF\u2019s archives.<\/p>\n \u00b7 Establishing the Marshall-Motley Scholars Program designed to support and train the next generation of civil rights lawyers to serve the South in the legacy of Thurgood Marshall.<\/p>\n \u00b7 Litigating Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard<\/a>, a case challenging Harvard\u2019s holistic admissions policy.<\/p>\n \u00b7 Relentlessly defending voting rights through LDF\u2019s Prepared to Vote and Voting Rights Defender projects<\/p>\n \u00b7 Executing the Pro-Truth Campaign to combat recent legislation introduced by 25+ states to restrict or ban instruction of our nation\u2019s history.<\/p>\n While LDF\u2019s accomplishments under her leadership are awe inspiring, Ifill has arguably been more than just the most senior executive. She\u2019s been a force of nature in the midst of what has arguably been a political and judicial firestorm for Black and Brown people in America in recent years. \u201cSherrilyn has done an extraordinary job of articulating the specific threats and challenges to communities of color in voting, education, policing and in other settings,\u201d explains Bryan Stevenson, famed civil rights attorney and founder of the Equal Justice Initiative. \u201cHowever, she has also been a critically important voice in detailing the growing threats to democracy in this country. She has a brilliant mind and a unique ability to define issues in a way that brings clarity to important conversations that are needed.\u201d<\/p>\n While it may be tempting to focus exclusively on her unique role within the racial justice ecosystem, that myopic lens arguably misses her full import as a uniquely gifted, influential leader. Speaking with her, her rare blend of confidence, strength, poise and selflessness is palpable. In that vein, late last year she announced her decision to transition what many racial justice advocates might consider the role of a lifetime to her Associate Director-Counsel Janai Nelson (marking the first woman to woman leadership transition<\/a> in the institution\u2019s 80+ year history) while she\u2019s still very much at the top of her game. \u201cI\u2019m of the belief that transitions are part of leadership,\u201d Ifill insists. \u201cPart of my job and obligation is to make sure that the organization remains strong.\u201d And in classic Sherrilyn Ifill fashion, she hands over an organization whose endowment fund has soared by $100 million during her tenure. <\/p>\n While veteran leaders can become distracted or even threatened by younger, newer energy, Ifill seems more invested in LDF\u2019s sustainability and growth. Ifill explains, \u201cOne of the things I want to model for my colleagues who lead other organizations is how to get out of the way\u2026is how to make way for fresh legs and new leadership to take the organization the next leg.\u201d Reflecting on the many lessons that Ifill has imparted during their years working together, Nelson highlights, \u201cthe unrelenting tenacity to never be so challenged by the difficult times that we\u2019re facing that we can\u2019t find a pathway or see a throughline to get you to the other side\u2026.Sherrilyn is quite strategic about thinking of ways to turn even the most dire circumstances into a learning lesson, a teachable moment at the minimum, and often a leverage point for change and transformation.\u201d <\/p>\n Considered among President Biden\u2019s potential nominees to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, Ifill hasn\u2019t yet announced a new formal role, but she\u2019s clear that the pursuit of racial justice is her life\u2019s mission irrespective of her job title. Along with getting some much deserved rest and savoring additional time with family, Ifill has begun writing a new book which she says was inspired by her hero\u2014the indominable voting rights activist\u2014Fannie Lou Hamer and her infamous 1964 testimony at the Democratic National Convention where she detailed her barbaric treatment at the hands of local officials after trying to \u201cregister to become a first-class citizen\u201d in Indianola, MS. Her brief testimony concluded with one powerfully revealing question, \u201cIs this America, the land of the free and the home of the brave, where we have to sleep with our telephones off the hooks because our lives be threatened daily because we want to live as decent human beings in America?\u201d <\/p>\n Fueled by that same visceral desire for the realization of the fundamental American ideals of freedom and equality, Ifill challenges us to revisit what democracy is supposed to look like. \u201cI think we are actually at a moment ironically of tremendous opportunity to make the kind of fundamental changes that I\u2019ve really devoted my life to that will ensure that our democracy is healthy, and a healthy democracy is one that does adhere to principles of equality, that does adhere to principles of equal justice under law so that people can respect the rule of law,\u201d she explains. \u201cIt is one that provides true opportunity, and it is one that creates an infrastructure of public goods that allows people to be able to move their lives forward and that compels us to interact with one another in ways that lifts our shared commonality.\u201d<\/p>\n Drawing the throughline between racial justice work and democracy, Ifill explains, \u201cPart of the reason why I want to write the book is to help people understand how deeply our ongoing engagement with and failure to reject the elements of white supremacy and systemic racism have so powerfully weakened our democracy. It\u2019s not about whether it has just meant that Black people have been subjected to police violence or inadequate education or housing discrimination; our very democracy I think as we have been able to see over the past five years is weakened by our failure to address and confront the role that race plays in our society.\u201d As an example, she references Russia\u2019s purported 2016 election interference strategy largely centering around exploiting racial divisions\u2014a known weakness for America.<\/p>\n Referencing the persistent injustices that have plagued Black and Brown communities, Ifill explains, \u201cWe\u2019re seeing all these ways in which race and racism is the stalking horse for a fundamental trove of anti-democratic practices and policies that become palatable because they\u2019re visited on minority communities. Our democracy cannot sustain this. We simply can\u2019t survive as a healthy democracy unless we confront this and figure out how to turn a corner so that\u2019s what I\u2019m going to be writing about.\u201d <\/p>\n Ifill insists that what is needed to address a centuries-long legacy of racial apartheid in a meaningful, inclusive and sustained way is nothing less than a refounding of our democracy. \u201cI think many people hoped it would just happen after Brown or hoped it would just happen after the civil rights movement that people would just hit the reset button, but it turns out that race and racism is so deep in the foundations of this country that it\u2019s going to take a great deal more.\u201d She describes her forthcoming book as a blueprint for how to create \u201ca renewed and refreshed vision of what it means to be a responsible citizen in this democracy and\u2026the things that we simply can\u2019t countenance if we have any hope of saving our Republic.\u201d<\/p>\n While it may be tempting to view Ifill\u2019s and LDF\u2019s work as exclusively focused on the interests of Black and Brown people, their fight has indeed been a broader one seeking full equality for all. Many don\u2019t realize that in July 2019 LDF joined other human rights organizations in an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to recognize that workplace anti-discrimination protections in Title VII apply to LGBTQ individuals, and in fact the June 2020 Supreme Court ruling<\/a> that did just that relied in part on the historic 1971 LDF case, Phillips v. Martin Marietta<\/em>, which ruled that \u201can employer may not, in the absence of business necessity, refuse to hire women with pre-school-age children while hiring men with such children.\u201d Indeed, the breadth of her life\u2019s work seems a testament to MLK\u2019s famous admonition, \u201cInjustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.\u201d To that end, Ifill urges everyone to resist the urge to avoid equity work because they\u2019re afraid of saying or doing the wrong thing and instead lean in full force. \u201cI want to encourage people to believe that we must do this work and that in fact it is noble work,\u201d she insists. \u201cIt is democracy work to be patriotic enough to grapple with the hardest things to face about your country and to think through how you\u2019re going to make change\u2026.Wherever I\u2019m seated, I\u2019m going to do this work.\u201d<\/p>\n Indeed, Ifill seems laser focused on that broader goal that benefits every American\u2014not telling America what to be or forcing it to change its values but instead challenging and requiring it to live up to what it says it is.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n