Bio
Nicole Ndumele is the Director of Policy and Government Affairs, Justice Division, where she leads the ACLU's justice policy and advocacy work.
Prior to joining the ACLU, Ndumele held multiple roles in the Department of Justice, including serving as a Deputy Associate Attorney General, a Legislative and Policy Counsel, and a Trial Attorney in the Civil Rights Division. She also served as the first Senior Vice President of Rights and Justice at the Center for American Progress. At the Center for American Progress, she led the organization’s rights and justice policy agenda involving criminal, racial, and disability justice; gun violence prevention; immigration; LGBTQ rights; and religious liberty. Additionally, she worked as a Senior Fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice, where she focused on civil rights, criminal justice, and rule of law issues. Prior to that, she was the inaugural Director of Strategic Litigation at Arnold Ventures. There, she led the organization’s efforts to develop a philanthropic investment portfolio leveraging high-impact litigation to foster criminal justice policy reforms.
Earlier in her career, she worked as a counsel at Protect Democracy, where she was responsible for identifying and combating emerging threats to American democracy. She has also worked as a public defender, zealously representing juveniles and adults in state court.
Nicole began her career as a judicial clerk to the Honorable Myron H. Thompson for the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama. Afterwards, she served as a Skadden Fellow at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and focused on fair housing litigation and policy. She is a graduate of Brown University and Harvard Law School.