About me
Maya Wiley is President and Chief Executive Officer of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, the nation's oldest and largest civil rights coalition. A nationally respected attorney, policy leader, and advocate, she has spent her career fighting to protect civil rights, expand opportunity, and strengthen American democracy through law, public policy, and grassroots action.
Wiley's career has spanned government, academia, and the nonprofit sector. She served as the first Black woman to become Counsel to the Mayor of New York City, where she helped advance civil rights, immigrant protections, and opportunities for minority- and women-owned businesses. She later chaired the New York City Civilian Complaint Review Board, leading efforts to increase transparency and accountability in police oversight, including the administrative prosecution that resulted in the dismissal of the officer responsible for Eric Garner's death. As a professor at The New School, she founded the Digital Equity Laboratory, helping shape national conversations about broadband access and the digital divide.
Earlier in her career, Wiley worked at the ACLU, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York. Following the September 11 attacks, she co-founded the Center for Social Inclusion, an organization dedicated to addressing structural racism and expanding opportunity in areas such as education, housing, economic development, and technology. She also served as a senior advisor on race and poverty at the Open Society Foundations and as a legal analyst for NBC News and MSNBC.
Throughout her career, Wiley has remained guided by a simple principle: democracy works only when everyone has an equal voice and an equal opportunity to succeed. Whether advocating in the courtroom, shaping public policy, or leading one of the nation's premier civil rights organizations, she has dedicated her life to building a more just and inclusive America.
