Profile

Britney Wilson is a Professor of Law and the Founding Director of the Civil Rights and Disability Justice Clinic.

Before NYLS, Professor Wilson was a staff attorney at the National Center for Law and Economic Justice (NCLEJ) where she litigated federal civil rights class action litigation concerning excessive fines and fees, discriminatory policing, and disability rights, particularly the provision of home and community-based services to people with disabilities and disability discrimination in healthcare.

Before NCLEJ, Professor Wilson was a Bertha Justice Fellow at the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and a Marvin M. Karpatkin Fellow in the Racial Justice Program at the national office of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) where she litigated a range of complex federal litigation on racial justice issues including discriminatory policing, abusive immigration detention practices, the school-to-prison pipeline, the criminalization of poverty, fair housing and lending, and inclusion in higher education.

Born with Cerebral Palsy, Professor Wilson has written and spoken extensively about disability, and the intersection of race and disability for various outlets, including The Nation Magazine, This American Life, and NPR. She has also testified about issues facing people with disabilities before local, national, and international governing bodies, including the New York City Council, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. She is an interdisciplinary scholar whose research aims to analyze and bridge the gap between civil rights, racial justice, and disability advocacy. In 2023, she was selected as a Health Law Scholar by the American Society of Law, Medicine, and Ethics and the Saint Louis University Center for Health Law Studies, and in 2025, she was selected as a fellow in the J. Willard Hurst Summer Institute in Legal History. Her scholarship has been published in the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, the UCLA Law Review, and the Journal of Legal Education.

Also an accomplished writer and artist, Professor Wilson has published short stories, poetry, and creative nonfiction essays. She was a featured poet on the HBO series Brave New Voices.