Maya Wiley, president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil & Human Rights and The Leadership Conference Education Fund, received a Champion of Civil Rights award. A nationally respected civil rights attorney, she has been a litigator, program creator and policy advocate in philanthropy, nonprofits, government and higher education. She ran for mayor of New York in 2021, garnering the second highest number of first choice votes in a rank choice vote election. In 2014, she became the first Black woman to be counsel to a New York City mayor, Bill de Blasio, and worked to protect and expand civil rights. She was senior vice president for social justice at the New School University, where she founded the Digital Equity Laboratory. Wiley has been a litigator at the ACLU, NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Inc., and the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. Wiley has received numerous awards, and has been a public voice for rights, justice and democracy. Wiley is the author of the memoir, “Remember You Are A Wiley.”
