Civil rights and racial justice scholar Deborah Archer to join NYU Law faculty

Dean Trevor Morrison announced on February 28 that Deborah N. Archer will join the Law School next academic year as an associate professor of clinical law. Archer is currently professor of law, director of the Racial Justice Project, and co-director of the Impact Center for Public Interest Law at New York Law School (NYLS). She led NYU Law’s Civil Rights Clinic as a visiting member of the faculty last fall.  

Deborah Archer

“Deborah is a creative scholar, a first-rate teacher, a generous colleague, and a tenacious advocate,” Morrison said. “We are thrilled that she has agreed to join us at NYU Law, and we look forward to welcoming her back to our community.”

Archer has been on the NYLS faculty since 2003, where in addition to her teaching and scholarship, she served as the school’s inaugural dean of diversity and inclusion and chief diversity officer, and as associate dean for academic affairs and student engagement. She leads NYLS’s Racial Justice Project, a legal advocacy initiative to protect the civil rights of people who have been denied those rights on the basis of race and to increase public awareness of racism and racial injustice. She is also founder and a co-director of NYLS’s Impact Center for Public Interest Law, which focuses on using law and legal education to advance social justice.

Archer serves on the boards of the Legal Aid Society, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Foundation, and the New York City Civilian Complaint Review Board. For many years, she also was on the board of the New York Civil Liberties Union.  In recognition of her work, the New York Law Journal named her one of its 2016 Top Women in Law.

Before beginning her career in law teaching, Archer was assistant counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, an associate at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, and a Marvin M. Karpatkin Fellow at the ACLU. Deborah earned an undergraduate degree from Smith College in 1993 and a JD from Yale Law School in 1996. After graduating from Yale, she clerked for Judge Alvin Thompson on the US District Court for the District of Connecticut.  

Posted March 1, 2018