Deborah N. Archer

Associate Dean for Academic Affairs
Professor of Law
Director, Racial Justice Project

An expert in the areas of civil rights and racial discrimination, Deborah N. Archer is Associate Dean for Academic Affairs. As Associate Dean, she works with faculty and administrators to develop the curriculum and help drive the Law School's efforts at innovation in legal education. Dean Archer was previously an assistant counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., where she litigated at the trial and appellate level in cases involving affirmative action in higher education, employment discrimination, school desegregation, and voting rights. She was also a Marvin H. Karpatkin Fellow with the American Civil Liberties Union, where she was involved in federal and state litigation on issues of race and poverty. Prior to joining New York Law School, Dean Archer was an associate at Simpson, Thacher & Bartlett LLP.
 

Dean Archer is also Director of the Racial Justice Project and the Civil Rights Clinic. As Director, she continues to work to protect the constitutional and civil rights of people of color and increase public awareness of racism, racial injustice, and structural racial inequality. Dean Archer has also participated as amicus counsel in several cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and U.S. Courts of Appeal, including Ricci v. DeStefano, Fisher v. University of Texas, and Hithon v. Tyson Foods.
 

Dean Archer graduated with honors from Smith College in 1993 and was awarded her J.D. from Yale Law School in 1996. She clerked for Judge Alvin Thompson in the United States District Court for the District of Connecticut. Dean Archer is a member of the National Board of Directors of the American Civil Liberties Union and the Board of Directors of the New York Civil Liberties Union. She was selected as an Aspen Ideas Festival Scholar and has also served on the Association of the Bar of the City of New York’s Civil Rights Committee and on the Committee on Civil Rights of the New York State Bar Association.