Professor Wilson Is an Accomplished Civil Rights Attorney Who Has Litigated Cases Involving Disability Rights, Discriminatory Policing, and Racial Justice
New York, NY (April 14, 2021) – New York Law School (NYLS) Dean Anthony W. Crowell today announced that civil rights attorney Britney Wilson will join NYLS on May 3 as Associate Professor of Law and Director of NYLS’s new Civil Rights and Disability Justice Clinic.
“I am so pleased to welcome Britney Wilson to New York Law School’s distinguished faculty,” said Anthony W. Crowell, NYLS Dean and President. “Professor Wilson is a highly accomplished advocate and litigator, and I know that she and our students will do extraordinary work together to advance civil rights and disability rights. As our nation begins to recover from a year of remarkable loss, this work is urgently needed.”
“I’m extremely excited to join the faculty of New York Law School as the Director of the new Civil Rights and Disability Justice Clinic,” said Britney Wilson. “As a Brooklyn native, I am proud to be part of ‘New York’s law school,’ and I’ve enjoyed interacting with NYLS students for several years as a guest lecturer in the School’s Impact Center Colloquium. This past year, and the past few years, especially, have shown us just how important strong social justice advocacy is and continues to be, and I’m looking forward to working with students to examine and challenge issues and systems of injustice.”
Professor Wilson comes to NYLS after serving as a staff attorney at the National Center for Law and Economic Justice (NCLEJ). In that role, she litigated civil rights cases involving excessive fines and fees and discriminatory policing. She also litigated disability rights cases concerning the provision of home and community-based services to people with disabilities, as well as disability discrimination in healthcare.
Before NCLEJ, Professor Wilson was a Bertha Justice Fellow at the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR). At CCR, she litigated discriminatory policing cases, including the remedial phase of Floyd v. the City of New York—the landmark case that successfully challenged the NYPD’s stop-and-frisk practices. She also worked on cases involving abusive immigration detention practices, economic justice, and voting rights. Prior to that role, she served as a Marvin M. Karpatkin Fellow in the Racial Justice Program at the American Civil Liberties Union, where she litigated racial justice issues, including the school-to-prison pipeline, the criminalization of poverty, fair housing, and inclusion in higher education.
Born with Cerebral Palsy, Professor Wilson has written and spoken extensively about disability, and the intersection of race and disability, for various outlets, including The Nation magazine, Longreads, This American Life, NPR, PBS Newshour, Colorlines, and The Huffington Post. She has also testified about issues facing people with disabilities before both local and international governing bodies, including the New York City Council and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
Professor Wilson earned her B.A. from Howard University summa cum laude and her J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania School of Law.
NYLS’s Civil Rights and Disability Justice Clinic will launch in Fall 2021. Students in the clinic will engage in impact litigation and other forms of legal and strategic policy advocacy to advance the cause of social justice. They will work under close faculty supervision and in partnership with community members, grassroots groups, and legal organizations to litigate cases and develop advocacy related to a range of civil rights and disability justice issues including racial, economic, and criminal justice, and education, housing, and voting rights.
The new clinic advances core action items outlined in 2020 Strategic Plan: Ever Upward, including expanding NYLS’s experiential learning offerings and addressing key social justice issues.