Deborah N. Archer

Deborah N. Archer is an Associate Professor of Clinical Law and Co-Faculty Director of the Center on Race, Inequality, and the Law at NYU School of Law. She is a nationally recognized expert on civil rights and racial justice, and teaches and writes in these areas. Her scholarship has appeared in or is forthcoming in leading law reviews, including the Michigan Law Review, Vanderbilt Law Review, Iowa Law Review, and the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review. Deborah received her J.D. from Yale Law School, where she was awarded the Charles G. Albom Prize, and her B.A. from Smith College. Deborah has also worked as an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., where she litigated in the areas of voting rights, employment discrimination, and school desegregation.

Deborah is currently a member of the National Board of Directors of the American Civil Liberties Union and General Counsel to the Board. She is also a member of the Board of the Legal Aid Society of New York. Deborah previously served on the New York City Civilian Complaint Review Board, the nation’s oldest and largest police oversight agency, and the 2018 New York City Charter Revision Commission.

Deborah was selected as an Aspen Ideas Festival Scholar and a recipient of the Judge Jane M. Bolin Alumni Service Award from Yale Law School, the Constance Baker Motley Award from Columbia Law School, the Haywood Burns/Shanara Gilbert Award from the Northeast People of Color Legal Scholarship Conference, and the Otto L. Walter Distinguished Writing Award from New York Law School.