On November 14, President Barack Obama announced his intent to nominate Debo Adegbile ’94 to assistant attorney general for civil rights in the Department of Justice. Adegbile, who currently serves as senior counsel to the United States Senate Judiciary Committee, previously worked for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund for more than a decade, holding positions including special counsel, acting president and director-counsel, associate director-counsel and director of litigation, associate director of litigation, and assistant counsel. Read the full White House press release about the nomination here.
In the Huffington Post, Sherrilyn Ifill ’87, president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund praised the president’s nomination: “Our country needs someone like Debo with significant experience in voting rights to protect the deeply held Ameriacan value that each person has the right to a voice in our democracy…. Debo has worked tirelessly to ensure that our nation lives up to its promise of equality for all Americans.”
An active alumnus of the Law School, Adegbile participated earlier this year in NYU Law’s Milbank Tweed Forum, joining Professor Barry Friedman, New York Times Supreme Court Correspondent Adam Liptak, and Lauren Goldman ’97, a partner at Mayer Brown, to discuss the Supreme Court’s upcoming docket (watch the full video of that discussion here).
In 2012, Adegbile received a distinguished alumni award from BLAPA, NYU Law’s Black Latino Asian Pacific American Law Alumni Association.
In July 2010 when he was named Alumnus of the Month, Adegbile took part in a Q&A with NYU Law, and spoke about how his childhood work on Sesame Street helped him land a job as a new lawyer. He also discussed his first experience arguing before the Supreme Court in defense of the Voting Rights Act in Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District Number One v. Holder.
A feature in the 2009 NYU Law Magazine, “Voting Rights Endure—for Now,” also explored Adegbile’s success defending Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act before the Supreme Court.
Posted on November 15, 2013