Who We Are
Faculty Director
Vincent M. Southerland, associate professor of law and director of the Criminal Defense and Re-entry Clinic at NYU Law, joined the Center on Race, Inequality, and the Law as its inaugural Executive Director in February 2017. He has dedicated his career to advancing racial justice and civil rights. Vincent comes to NYU Law after serving as an Assistant Federal Public Defender with the Federal Defenders for the Southern District of New York since 2015. Prior to his time at the Federal Defenders, Vincent spent seven years at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF), where he was a Senior Counsel. While at LDF, he engaged in litigation and advocacy at the intersection of race and criminal justice, including the successful representation of people sentenced to death across the American South and children sentenced to life imprisonment without parole. He also led LDF’s advocacy efforts around race and policing, and was lead counsel in school desegregation and employment discrimination matters. Vincent previously served as a staff attorney at The Bronx Defenders, and an E. Barrett Prettyman Fellow at Georgetown University Law Center. He began his career as a law clerk to the Honorable Theodore McKee, Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, and the Honorable Louis H. Pollak, of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. Vincent holds an LLM from Georgetown University Law Center, received his JD from Temple University School of Law, and his BA from the University of Connecticut. He serves on the boards of The Bail Project, the Federal Defenders of New York, and the Center for Constitutional Rights.
Faculty Directors Emeriti
Anthony Thompson, Professor of Clinical Law Emeritus, was the Center’s founding faculty director. Professor Thompson retired from the NYU Law faculty, of which he was a member for 25 years and taught courses in criminal justice, civil litigation and leadership. Thompson is part of the Duke Corporate Education Global Educator Network and has provided executive education to a number of global companies focusing on leadership and strategy execution. He received numerous prizes for his teaching, including the NYU Distinguished Teaching Award; the Martin Luther King, Jr. Faculty Award, which recognizes teaching excellence, leadership, social justice activism, and community building; and the Law School’s Podell Distinguished Teaching Award. Thompson was recognized by El Diario in 2011 with “The EL” award, as one of the “outstanding Latinos in the Tri-State area,” for his community service. He earned his JD at Harvard Law School and his BS Ed from Northwestern University.
Deborah N. Archer, Margaret B. Hoppin Professor of Law and director of the Civil Rights Clinic at NYU Law, joined the Center as its faculty co-director in February 2019. Archer joined the NYU Law faculty in 2018, following a distinguished career as a professor of law at New York Law School (NYLS). While at NYLS, Professor Archer served as the school’s inaugural dean of diversity and inclusion and as associate dean for academic affairs and student engagement. She also led NYLS’s Racial Justice Project, a legal advocacy initiative that worked to advance racial justice and civil rights. Archer is president of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and serves on the board of the Legal Aid Society. For many years, she also served on the New York City Civilian Complaint Review Board and 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.
Executive Director
Patrice Sulton, Executive Director, is a distinguished attorney, educator, and advocate with deep experience advancing racial justice and transforming legal systems through evidence-based, community-rooted strategies. She has been described as the “tip of the spear” for public safety reform, and “one of the most trusted sources of bold ideas about how to change the system.”
Before joining NYU Law, Patrice founded and led DC Justice Lab, a nonprofit dedicated to driving large-scale reforms to the District of Columbia’s criminal legal system. She played a critical role in drafting the District’s comprehensive Criminal Code overhaul and contributed to a record number of police reform and decarceration efforts, informed by rigorous research and community engagement. Under her leadership, DC Justice Lab launched a digital open-source library, an intensive policy training academy for community members; a first-of-its-kind law student advocacy competition, designed as a step toward diversifying legislative staff; and a fellowship program that serves as a training ground for movement lawyers.
Throughout her career, Patrice has received numerous honors, including the Echoing Green Fellowship, Washington Lawyers’ Committee Alfred McKenzie Award, Greater Washington Urban League Champion of Justice Award, and the National Bar Association’s Lendon J. Alexander Advocacy & Leadership Award. She was also a finalist in the World Justice Challenge in The Hague.
Patrice’s career is marked by her dedication to cultivating community power, mentoring emerging leaders, and advancing policies that make people safer, freer, and more equal. She is a respected voice on policy change and an influential thought leader on race and the law.
Director of the Initiative for Community Power
Andrew Friedman is founding director of the Initiative for Community Power at NYU School of Law. The Initiative is an ambitious, multi-faceted effort to combine the weight and assets of a global academic institution with the nimble, community-grounded tools of advocacy and organizing. Its goal is to catalyze understanding, innovation, and high-impact work in order to accelerate social change towards a more equitable, democratic, and racially just society. The Initiative combines scholarship, field-building, experiential education, academic convenings, internships and fellowships to examine inequality and anti-democracy, and the links between the two. The Initiative works to challenge and disrupt both. Andrew comes to the Initiative after decades of work founding and leading some of the highest impact base-building organizations in the United States, such as Make the Road New York and the Center for Popular Democracy.
Director of the Environmental and Climate Justice Initiative
Marianne Engelman-Lado, Director of the Environmental Justice and Climate Initiative at New York University School of Law, has devoted her career to civil rights and environmental justice. During the Biden Administration, she served as Deputy General Counsel for Environmental Initiatives in the Office of General Counsel and as Acting Principal Deputy Assistant Administrator in the newly launched Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights at the Environmental Protection Agency, where she focuses on equity, environmental justice, and civil rights enforcement. She previously directed Environmental Justice Clinics at Yale and Vermont Law Schools, which trained students in community lawyering and civil rights enforcement in the environmental justice context, and served as a Lecturer at both the Yale University School of Public Health and the Yale School of the Environment, where she supervised interdisciplinary teams of law, environmental, and public health students working on climate justice issues. She has served as senior staff attorney at Earthjustice, general counsel at New York Lawyers for the Public Interest (NYLPI), and staff attorney at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF). Before joining EPA, she served as co-chair of the Equity and Environmental Justice Working Group of Connecticut’s Governor’s Council on Climate Change, and as a board member of WE ACT for Environmental Justice and the Center for Public Representation. Marianne has lectured widely and taught graduate, law, and undergraduate-level courses. She holds a B.A. in government from Cornell University, a J.D. from the University of California at Berkeley, and an M.A. in Politics from Princeton University. Recent publications include ”Pipeline Struggles: Case Studies in Ground Up Lawyering,” with Kenneth Rumelt, and “No More Excuses: Building a New Vision of Civil Rights Enforcement in the Context of Environmental Justice.”
Executive Director, The Appellate Project
Amity Boye is an attorney and nonprofit leader who operates at the crossroads of public service and private practice.
Before joining NYU Law, Amity was Chief of Staff at the global law firm White & Case, where she helped develop, communicate, and execute the firm’s strategic priorities. She is particularly proud of her work harnessing the firm’s resources to advance a broader vision of global citizenship—one that made charitable giving and pro bono service integral to the firm’s identity and sense of purpose.
Amity’s foundation in appellate work was forged at the Florida Supreme Court, where she clerked for two years for Justice Charles T. Wells. She later brought that appellate experience to an active pro bono practice at White & Case where she played a central role in two successful criminal appeals in capital cases. She also led pro bono projects on access to justice and reproductive rights.
Amity’s commitment to opening doors for the next generation took shape as Executive Director of the International Law Students Association, where she led the world’s largest moot court competition, the Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition. Through this work, she helped create opportunities for aspiring lawyers to develop their advocacy skills, engage with international law, and explore the role of law in addressing challenges that transcend borders.
Volunteer service has been a throughline of Amity’s career. For more than twenty years, she has served as a court-appointed advocate for children in foster care in New York City, helping young people and their families access the education, housing, and social services they need. She is President-Elect of the American Branch of the International Law Association, where she has held a series of volunteer leadership roles for more than a decade. She also serves on the board of the Center for Justice and Accountability.
Amity holds a J.D. from Brooklyn Law School, an M.A. in philosophy from New York University, and a B.A. from Wellesley College. She is admitted to practice in New York and Florida.
Special Advisor on Race and Wrongful Conviction
Ashley Burrell serves as Special Advisor on Race and Wrongful Conviction at the Innocence Project and the Center on Race, Inequality, and the Law. In this role, Ashley provides leadership and expertise on racial justice, bias, and discrimination, and its impact on the functioning of the criminal legal system. Ashley comes to IP and CRIL after previously serving as Senior Counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc. where she litigated criminal defense and civil rights cases in state and federal courts. Most recently, Ashley was LDF's Lead Counsel on a team that successfully challenged a death sentence under North Carolina's Racial Justice Act.
Prior to joining LDF, Ashley was a public defender for eight years. Ashley served as an Assistant Federal Defender at the Federal Defenders of New York, Inc. in the Eastern District of New York. She began her legal career at the Bronx Defenders where she was a Staff Attorney and Supervising Attorney.
Ashley graduated from Columbia University School of Law where she was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar, and Williams College where she graduated with Honors.
Operations Coordinator
Kyla James (she/her) is a mission-driven professional in legal operations, dedicated to advancing racial equity, education, and justice reform. She earned her B.A. in Sociology and African American Studies from the University of Virginia (UVA) during a period when both Charlottesville and UVA were at the center of a national reckoning on race. This early engagement with racial justice shaped her career in nonprofit legal operations. She joined a legal nonprofit expanding access to justice for New Yorkers facing systemic socioeconomic barriers, and as an Education Pioneers Impact Fellow, partnered with a DC charter school to strengthen organizational capacity and advance educational equity amid heightened national scrutiny. Now, at the Center on Race, Inequality, and the Law at NYU School of Law, she continues building equitable systems that create lasting opportunities for communities affected by racial and social injustice. She remains an active advocate in her vibrant Bronx community, working to develop opportunities and champion justice at the local level.
Staff Attorney
Tolu Lawal (she/her) joined the Center in September 2022. Prior to joining the Center, she was a Racial Justice Legal Fellow with the New York City Commission on Human Rights, working on legislative and policy analysis, public education and community collaboration, legal research, and restorative/transformative justice through a race-specific focus. While a student at NYU Law, she served as the Co-Chair of the Black Allied Law Student Association (BALSA) and one of the lead organizers of the Racism Lives Here Too campaign. She worked at the Center as an intern in 2017, as well as an intern at the ACLU Racial Justice Project in 2018, and with NYU's Juvenile Defenders Clinic from 2018 to 2019. She also engages in advocacy, supporting Black and Brown-led groups committed to charting the road to liberation for all people, particularly those who are formerly incarcerated. She currently provides legal support to the Justice Impact Alliance. She is also a co-founder and co-lead organizer of Unlock the Bar (UTB), a New York-based campaign and coalition of allied and systems-impacted law students and lawyers who are advocating for a just and equitable legal profession. She received her J.D. from New York University Law School in the Class of 2019 and received her B.A. from Duke University in 2014.
Graduate Fellow
Shirin Asgari (she/her) serves as a Graduate Research Fellow with the Center, where her work focuses on issues at the intersection of race, punishment, technology, and the impact of surveillance systems on communities of color. She provides legal and policy support to the Data Justice Act Initiative, which works with municipalities and states to advance legislation to limit law enforcement’s collection and retention of personal data. Her work examines key legal and policy issues related to surveillance, data collection, and privacy, and develops statutory limitations and accountability mechanisms grounded in racial and social justice.
Prior to joining the Center, Shirin served as a Judicial Law Clerk in New Jersey, where she worked on juvenile criminal and family matters. In that role, she conducted legal research and analysis on motions, evidentiary issues, expert testimony, and body-worn camera footage to support judicial decision-making.
Previously, Shirin was a Legal Fellow with TrialWatch at the Clooney Foundation for Justice, where she conducted legal research and monitored trials around the world for compliance with international and domestic fair-trial standards. She also developed country-specific advocacy strategies and drafted reports and legal advocacy materials addressing judicial abuses and the wrongful imprisonment of journalists, democracy defenders, women, minorities, and other marginalized and vulnerable groups.
Shirin received her J.D. from New York University School of Law in 2024, where she was an IILJ Joyce Lowinson Scholar, and her B.A. from the University of California, San Diego, in 2020.