Alexandra Coll

Alexandra R. Coll (“Ally”) (she/her) is an Associate Professor of Law. She teaches courses about the modern administrative state, the federal courts system, and civil liability for personal and institutional wrongdoing. She is a nationally recognized expert, thought leader, writer, and public speaker on gender equality in the workplace, with a broader focus on civil rights and constitutional law. Her writing—which has been featured in outlets including The Washington Post, Fortune, PBS NewsHour, Law360, Roll Call, Bloomberg Law, The Hill, and Jezebel—explores the legal and institutional structures that shape the advancement of equal rights. Professor Coll regularly lectures on related topics including administrative law, constitutional separation of powers, equal protection, and federal civil rights law.

In 2018, Professor Coll co-founded the Purple Campaign, a non-profit organization created to address workplace sexual harassment in the wake of the #MeToo movement. For more than five years, she led the organization’s legal and policy efforts to strengthen corporate policies, improve laws, and empower individuals to drive change in their own workplaces and communities. In this role, she led an amicus brief on behalf of 45 public interest and civil rights organizations in Caryn Strickland v. U.S., which resulted in a landmark ruling by the Fourth Circuit recognizing constitutional equal protection rights for employees of the federal judiciary. Professor Coll also testified before the U.S. House Judiciary Committee on the need for Congress to extend federal civil rights protections to judicial branch employees.

Prior to launching the Purple Campaign, Professor Coll worked as a litigator at Boies Schiller Flexner in Washington, D.C., and as a policy aide on Capitol Hill. In 2017, she helped file a complaint on behalf of eleven Charlottesville plaintiffs in Sines v. Kessler, a civil rights lawsuit against twenty-four white supremacist leaders and organizations. As Elections Counsel on the U.S. House Committee on Administration, she served as legal counsel and chief policy advisor on issues including campaign finance reform, federal ethics, and the implementation of the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) and the Help America Vote Act (HAVA).

At CUNY, Professor Coll is a faculty affiliate of the Institute on Gender, Law, and Transformative Peace. She was the 2018 recipient of the Harvard Women’s Law Association’s “Shatter the Ceiling” alumni award, and served as a consultant on the major motion picture On the Basis of Sex, a biopic about Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s early legal career. She received her B.A. in History and Political Science, magna cum laude, from Tulane University, and her J.D., magna cum laude, from Harvard Law School.

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