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Lurie Daniel Favors Named Executive Director of the Center for Law and Social Justice at Medgar Evers College

Daniel Favors previously served as interim executive director and general counsel to the CLSJ
LDF Headshot 2021
Lurie Daniel Favors Photo: Supplied/ Center for Law and Social Justice

Racial justice attorney and advocate Lurie Daniel Favors has been named executive director the Center for Law and Social Justice at Medgar Evers College (CLSJ).

Daniel Favors previously served as interim executive director and general counsel to the organization, after first joining CLSJ in 2015.

In the new role, Daniel Favors will lead CLSJ’s strategic direction, building on its 36-year-old foundation to address racial justice issues by providing quality legal advocacy, conducting community education campaigns, facilitating research and building organizing capacity on behalf of New Yorkers of African descent and the disenfranchised, CLSJ said in a statement.

Daniel Favors said since its formation in 1986, CLSJ had been the standard-bearer for advocacy in the New York fight for racial, social and economic justice and she was “honored to inherit its important legacy.”

“I am committed to shaping its future so that CLSJ can continue to protect and empower Black New Yorkers and other vulnerable groups at a time when systemic racial inequities have been magnified by the COVID-19 pandemic and exacerbated by a dangerous escalation of violent white nationalist extremism and an all-out assault on voting rights,” Daniel Favors said.

“We’re facing the greatest threats to the American democracy of our generation. CLSJ will embrace the courage and resilience of the activists who paved the way for our progress and continue the fight for a better future.”

Daniel Favors began her legal career as an attorney in the New York offices of Proskauer Rose LLP and Manatt Phelps and Phillips, LLP and served as a federal court law clerk in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York. She later founded Daniel Favors Law PLLC, a law firm that focused on economic and racial justice. In 2021, Daniel Favors was appointed as a commissioner to the NYC Racial Justice Commission.

Medgar Evers College Interim Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs Dr. Ronald J. Sheehy said Daniel Favors brought “a wealth of experience and commitment” to the field of law and social justice.

“The CLSJ Center that she directs will continue to be an asset to both Medgar Evers College and the larger New York City community."

Esmeralda Simmons, CLSJ’s founding executive director, added that Daniel Favors was committed to the pursuit of total freedom for New Yorkers of African descent and had “the vision, the voice of an advocate and vigor to fill this demanding role.”

“She steps into this position at this specific time of heightened awareness, in NYC and across the US, of the stark social inequalities, and the role that systemic racism continues to play in this society,” Simmons said.

“Lurie Daniel Favors is the racial justice legal expert needed at the helm of the Center for Law and Social Justice as it advances into the 21st century fighting for the lives and freedom of African descendant New Yorkers.”




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