Jameel Jaffer

Jameel Jaffer received his Law Degree from Harvard Law School, as well as a Masters Degree in Philosophy from the University of Cambridge, and a Bachelor of Arts degree from Williams College. Following his legal training, he served as a Law Clerk to Hon. Amalya L. Kearse for the US Court of Appeals to the Second Circuit, and subsequently as a Law Clerk to Rt. Hon. Beverley McLachlin, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada.

In 2002 he began working for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Foundation, where he was Director of the Center for Democracy from 2010 to 2016. In 2016 he took up his current role at Columbia University as the Inaugural Director of the Knight First Amendment Institute. 

Jameel Jafer has worked as a litigator on some of the most important issues in the United States regarding civil liberties and human rights in the post-September 2001 period.