Janai Nelson, the 2026 W. Haywood Burns Chair in Human and Civil Rights, says, “I feel deeply called to do justice work.”
Janai Nelson knows precisely what it means to inherit a legacy—and what it means to carry it forward.
As President and Director-Counsel of the Legal Defense Fund (LDF), the nation’s premier civil rights law organization, she has spent her entire career using the law as a tool for racial justice and equality. Now, as the CUNY School of Law 2026 W. Haywood Burns Chair in Human and Civil Rights, she brings that experience to a new generation of lawyers.
For Nelson, becoming a civil rights lawyer wasn’t so much a calculated, career choice. Instead, it was more of a calling. Early in college, she met a group of law students who gave language to injustices she had long recognized in the world. “When they talked to me about some of the work that they were doing as law students and saw my deep curiosity, they said, you should consider going to law school,” she recalls. “I did, and I’ve never looked back.”
A graduate of New York University and UCLA School of Law, Nelson went on to clerk for federal judges, become a Fulbright Scholar in Ghana, teach law, and build a renowned career at LDF. Her legal work has included major cases involving voting rights and political participation. She was lead counsel in Veasey v. Abbott, a successful federal challenge to Texas’s voter ID law, and the architect of NUL v. Trump, which challenged the constitutionality of an executive order banning diversity, equity, and inclusion training in the workplace before the order was rescinded. In 2025, she argued Louisiana v. Callais before the U.S. Supreme Court, defending equitable congressional representation for Black voters in Louisiana and the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Prof. John Whitlow, Janai Nelson, the 2026 W. Haywood Burns Chair in Human and Civil Rights, and Assoc. Prof. Marbre Stahly-Butts, Faculty Co-Directors of the W. Haywood Burns Chair, stand behind a desk that once belonged to Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. Marshall founded the Legal Defense Fund (LDF) in 1940 and served as its first Director-Counsel until 1961.
But Nelson sees civil rights law as much more than litigation. “To me, being a civil rights lawyer means that I am advancing a legacy,” she says— “one that predates the modern civil rights movement.” She notes, “Black people have pursued freedom, justice, equality and humanity since, frankly, Black people came to this shore—and have done it in a myriad of ways. One of the most potent tools is to use the law as a tool for transformation and liberation.
That philosophy connects her to W. Haywood Burns, CUNY Law’s second dean and a pioneering civil rights lawyer and educator. She describes Burns as a “Renaissance lawyer” whose advocacy crossed boundaries and embraced a global understanding of equality and human rights. “People talk about civil rights, but civil rights are really human rights,” Nelson says. “And human rights are rooted in justice and humanity and core principles of dignity that should be collectively shared.”
She also sees a connection between Burns, LDF and CUNY Law. Burns was an assistant counsel at LDF from 1967 to 1969 and was general counsel to Martin Luther King Jr’s Poor People’s Campaign. Like Burns, Nelson believes lawyers have a responsibility to see beyond individual cases and borders, and to understand the communities their work serves.
That commitment also informs her belief in public legal education. A graduate of New York City public schools, Nelson calls public law schools “absolutely essential in any society.”
For CUNY Law students, Interim Dean Natalie Gomez-Velez, says, “her appointment offers more than access to one of the country’s leading civil rights lawyers. It offers a model for a legal career that can encompass litigation, scholarship, advocacy, teaching and institutional leadership. We are thrilled to have her join us as this year’s Burns Chair and we welcome her.”
At the heart of Nelson’s philosophy is a simple idea: Our futures are connected. “I think the biggest challenge is this growing sense of individualism and people not recognizing that our fates and our destinies are linked,” she says. “When some of the most marginalized people in our society are brought to the center, everyone benefits.”
Her answer is community—and a commitment to using the law to expand the circle of justice. “It’s so exciting to be affiliated with an institution that I believe in—CUNY Law,” Nelson says. “To have this role at this time of peril and promise in this country and in the world is quite meaningful.”
For a law school built on the conviction that law can and should serve human needs, Nelson’s presence offers CUNY Law students a powerful example of what it means to put that conviction into practice.