A Critical Voices discussion with Nicole Austin-Hillery, US Program Executive Director, Human Rights Watch. Austin-Hillery will discuss civil rights and human rights and her work with Human Rights Watch to end violations in abusive U.S. Systems. 2019 Sorensen Center Scholar-In-Residence, Maina Kiai, will preside.

Austin-Hillery’s work focuses on improving the U.S. immigration system, tackling race discrimination, rights problems within the domestic criminal justice system, and advocating fro national security polices informed by international human rights standards. Previously, Austin-Hillery was the first Director and Counsel of the Brennan Center’s Washington D.C. offices where she oversaw the growth and development of the Center’s advocacy and policy development, and served as its chief representative before Congress and Executive Branch. Austin-Hillery also litigated at Mehri & Skalet as part of the firm’s civil rights employment class action practice and as the George N. Lindsay Civil Rights Law Fellow Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law in Washington, D.C., where she focused on housing litigation and policy.

Kiai is a prominent Kenyan human rights lawyer who leads a new partnership initiative at Human Rights Watch to build alliances and engage communities in human rights work. Prior to his work with Human Rights Watch, he served as the first-ever United Nations Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association. He held fact-finding missions in Ferguson, Baltimore, Jackson, and other U.S. cities, and urged lawmakers to stop an alarming trend to curb freedom of assembly around Standing Rock, women’s marches, and #BlackLivesMatter.