Jin Hee Lee is the Director of Strategic Initiatives at the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF). In this role, she leads the Department of Strategic Initiatives, which houses specific projects and campaigns that integrate litigation, policy, organizing, communications, research, and public education to provide impactful, community-centered advocacy for Black communities. Ms. Lee also led LDF’s representation of a multi-racial coalition of 25 Harvard student and alumni organizations, which served as amici curiae in both the trial and appellate levels in the affirmative action case, Students for Fair Admission v. Harvard (https://www.defenddiversity.org/). As counsel for the student and alumni organizations, Ms. Lee presented oral argument to the First Circuit Court of Appeals in the Harvard case. 980 F.3d 157 (1st. Cir. 2020).

Ms. Lee is a 1995 graduate of Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, magna cum laude, and the recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship. She graduated from Columbia Law School in 2000 and served as law clerk to Judge Martha Vázquez in the United States District Court for the District of New Mexico. In 2016, Ms. Lee was recognized by Columbia Law School as the Distinguished Public Interest Graduate of the Year.