Janell Byrd-Chichester is the director of the Thurgood Marshall Institute of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF). She previously served as an LDF assistant counsel from 1987-2001, during which time she litigated school desegregation, affirmative action in higher education, and employment discrimination cases; led LDF’s educational policy work with a focus on high-stakes testing; and managed LDF’s Washington, D.C., office. As a civil rights litigator and public policy advocate, she has used social science research extensively on a broad array of civil rights issues—including fair housing and lending, consumer protection, school desegregation and educational testing, affirmative action, employment discrimination, police misconduct, and public accommodations. She is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley School of Law, where she was a member of the California Law Review and a graduate, cum laude, of American University in Washington, D.C.