Sherrilyn Ifill

Sherrilyn Ifill is the founding director of the 14th Amendment Center for Law & Democracy and the Vernon E. Jordan, Jr., Esq. Endowed Chair in Civil Rights at Howard University School of Law. She is a civil rights lawyer and scholar whose work focuses on constitutional law, voting rights, racial justice, and democratic institutions. Her current role combines legal scholarship, public education, and institutional leadership around the Fourteenth Amendment and civil rights law.

Ifill earned a B.A. in English from Vassar College in 1984 and a J.D. from New York University School of Law in 1987. Her legal education prepared her for a career centered on civil rights litigation, constitutional analysis, and legal scholarship. She later spent two decades on the faculty of the University of Maryland School of Law, where she taught and wrote on civil rights, voting rights, judicial diversity, and related constitutional issues.

Ifill began her legal career as a fellow at the American Civil Liberties Union before joining the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund as an assistant counsel, where she litigated voting rights cases in the South. She returned to LDF in 2013 and served as president and director-counsel through 2022. Her work there included leadership across voting rights, criminal justice, education, economic justice, and other civil rights matters.

Sherrilyn Ifill has received major professional honors including the American Bar Association’s Thurgood Marshall Award, the New York State Bar Association Gold Medal, the Brandeis Medal, and the National Civil Rights Museum Freedom Award. She was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2019 and named to TIME’s 100 Most Influential People list in 2021. Ifill combines litigation experience, scholarship, teaching, and civil rights leadership in her current work at Howard Law.

Law Office Affiliations

• Vernon Jordan Distinguished Professor, Howard University School of Law, Civil Rights
• Founding Director, 14th Amendment Center for Law & Democracy, Howard Law School
• Former President & Director-Counsel, NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund
• Member, District of Columbia Bar Association
• Member, American Bar Association
• Lifetime Member, American Constitution Society
• Fellow, American Civil Liberties Union

Licensed State

• District of Columbia

Education

• New York University School of Law
  Juris Doctor (JD)
• Vassar College
  AB in English

Awards & Badges