Judith Browne Dianis has served as a lawyer, professor and civil rights advocate in the movement for racial justice. Hailed as a voting rights expert and Godmother of the movement to dismantle the school-to-prison pipeline, Dianis is Executive Director of Advancement Project and Advancement Project Action Fund, where she leads their work in combating structural racism in education, voting, policing, and criminal justice.
Since joining Advancement Project at its inception in 1999, Dianis has been a pioneer in the development of the movement lawyering model. She has worked with grassroots organizations to wage successful campaigns using litigation, advocacy and communications. Dianis has authored groundbreaking reports on school discipline and criminalization. Advancement Project’s work has led to decreases in suspensions and arrests and removal of police in several districts.
Dianis helped start Advancement Project’s Voter Protection program which has brought some of the most important voting rights cases of our time and is currently litigating in Georgia and Florida. Under her leadership Advancement Project started its Justice Project to end mass incarceration and transform public safety. The organization has provided rapid response support in communities facing police violence. Recently, Judith co-created an animated video series with her Board member, actor/activist Jesse Williams, called How Cops Get Off to explain the reasons police are unaccountable.
Judith is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia Law School. She served as president of Columbia Black Law Students Association, leading a sit-in resulting in hiring of additional Black professors among other changes. Upon graduation, Dianis served as a Skadden Fellow at the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund and went on to become the Managing Attorney in the Washington, D.C. office. She was awarded the Prime Movers Fellowship for trailblazing social movement leaders and was named one of “Thirty Women to Watch” by Essence magazine.