Digital Justice Fellow

Location: Washington, D.C. 

The NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) is the country’s first and foremost civil and human rights law organization. Founded in 1940 under the leadership of Thurgood Marshall, who subsequently became the first Black U.S. Supreme Court Justice, LDF was launched at a time when the nation’s aspirations for equality and due process of law were stifled by widespread state-sponsored racial inequality. From that era to the present, LDF’s mission has been transformative—to achieve racial justice, equality, and an inclusive society.

LDF’s litigation, policy advocacy, organizing, and public education programs in the substantive areas of criminal justice, economic justice, education and political participation seek to ensure the fundamental and basic human rights of all people to quality education, economic opportunity, the right to vote and fully participate in democracy, and the right to a fair and just judicial system.

The Digital Justice Fellow will work with LDF litigators, policy advocates, and organizers and assist in the development of litigation, legislation, and advocacy tools to critically examine and address the role of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and big data in the creation, maintenance, and furthering of racial inequality.

While TMI and LDF are interested in the impact of emerging technologies in Black communities across our core issue areas, our digital rights work has primarily addressed three priorities: 1) police surveillance technologies; 2) algorithmic discrimination as a barrier to economic justice; and 3) the impact of AI on Black political power. The Digital Justice Fellow will advance TMI and LDF’s racial justice and emerging technologies agenda by producing reports, briefs, and other written materials and working collaboratively within LDF to educate the public and to support our visionary advocacy work. Experience with racial bias analysis and with technology required. 

Responsibilities: 

• Lead the development of a formal digital justice team. The Fellow will work with other team members from litigation, policy, communications, and organizing to inform organizational strategic priorities. The Fellow would also serve as a member of the Justice in Public Safety Project and other relevant internal teams working on the intersections of technology and racial justice; 
• Conduct regular landscape analyses/literature reviews of use cases of civil rights violations involving emerging technologies in Black communities and LDF target jurisdictions, regulatory digest of civil and digital rights as well as legal and policy developments related to digital justice in the United States and globally; 
• Create TMI research publications, including a public facing webinar, TMI report, brief, podcast, and op-ed/blogs that translate insights and learnings from LDF digital justice advocacy into external-facing products for key stakeholders; 
• Support capacity-building activities related to digital justice for LDF staff and our local community partners. This would include developing issue briefings, trainings, and workshop materials for our local partners. This may include providing consultation on AI civil rights audits, legal investigations, and data consultations on related matters. It would also include participating as a standing member of key LDF teams; and 
• Other duties as assigned within the general scope of the position.

Qualifications: 

• Advanced Degree is required; preferred field of study: Humanities, Social and Data Sciences, Journalist, Arts, and other relevant disciplines; 
• Minimum of 5 years of experience; 
• Advanced analytical and critical thinking skills; 
• Commitment to the racial justice mission of LDF; and  
• Excellent oral and written communication skills. 

LDF offers a rich platform of benefits including medical (Empire), dental (Cigna), vision (NVA), flexible spending accounts (Flex Facts), transit/commuter plan, life insurance, AD&D, voluntary life & AD&D (UNUM), AFLAC, Employee Assistance Plan, and Health Advocate.  As well as the many healthcare benefits, LDF offers a 403b plan with employer match, and a robust vacation, sick, and personal time program to ensure employees have a healthy work-life balance.

This is not an exhaustive list of all responsibilities, duties, skills, efforts or requirements or working conditions associated with the job. While this is intended to be an accurate reflection of the current job, management reserves the right to revise the job or to require that other or different tasks be performed as assigned. This description does not constitute a contract of employment and LDF may exercise its employment-at-will rights at any time.

Please note that LDF requires all employees to be fully vaccinated, including a booster shot against COVID-19 as a condition of employment. Accordingly, successful candidates must be fully vaccinated, including the booster shot against COVID-19, and submit proof of vaccination prior to the commencement of employment unless they qualify for a reasonable accommodation for bona fide medical or religious reasons.