Amol Sinha

About Amol Sinha

Amol Sinha is a nationally recognized civil rights leader who has dedicated his career to advancing racial justice, holding institutions accountable, and promoting and defending rights and liberties.As Executive Director of the ACLU of New Jersey (ACLU-NJ), Amol leads a team of dedicated professionals and guides the organization\'s innovative integrated advocacy work, utilizing litigation, policy, public education, and strategic communications to build a more equitable society.Under his leadership, the ACLU-NJ has experienced tremendous growth, resulting in transformational change to New Jersey\'s civil rights landscape. During Amol\'s tenure, the ACLU-NJ has appeared before the New Jersey Supreme Court more times than any non-governmental party, deepened community partnerships across the state, and centered the experiences of directly impacted communities. Highlights include developing litigation and legislation that led to the early release of over people from our state\'s prisons and jails, leading the successful fight to legalize cannabis through a racial justice lens, and passing legislation to ensure driver\'s licenses for all, regardless of immigration status.Before joining the ACLU-NJ in 2017, Amol was a state policy advocate at the Innocence Project, where he worked to address wrongful convictions and reform the criminal legal system across the country. From 20••••15, Amol was the director of the Suffolk County Chapter of the New York Civil Liberties Union, where he focused primarily on criminal justice and immigrants\' rights.Amol is actively involved in the South Asian American community, including having served as the president of the South Asian Bar Association of New York, where he led efforts to shape the organization\'s public interest community and programming.Amol holds a BA from New York University and a JD from Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. He frequently appears in regional, national, and international news outlets as a commentator across many topics, including civil rights and liberties, racial justice, public interest law, and issues facing Asian American and South Asian communities.

Experience

1. Adjunct Professor

   Marymount Manhattan College

   Aug 2012 — Present

   Designed and taught several courses including:Criminal Justice: An exploration of the structures, issues, and politics of the U.S. criminal justice system. Students examine and explore criminal justice issues, critically analyze the structures that cause those issues, and assess the various community based, policy, legislative, and legal responses and solutions. Constitutional Law: Doctrinal course on constitutional structure, governmental powers, and rights and liberties. Students learn through historic and current Supreme Court decisions and current events that highlight constitutional issues. Topics include judicial review, presidential powers, freedom of speech, press, and religion, privacy, equal protection, criminal justice, race/gender/sexual orientation equality, etc. Media Law and Ethics: Explored constitutional and ethical issues surrounding media. Topics included First Amendment law, censorship, media bias, national security and the media, media and politics, social media ethics, etc.Liberty, Justice, and the Media: Explored the influence of media on policy and public opinion on issues of civil rights, criminal justice, and national security.

Education

• Cardozo School of Law

  JD, Constitutional Rights and Litigation

• New York University

  B.A., Economics, Journalism

Skills

• Community Organizing
• Public Policy
• Civil Rights
• Civil Liberties
• Teaching
• Writing
• Policy
• Media
• Research
• Legal Research
• Non-Profits
• Legal Writing
• Government Relations
• Seminars
• Nonprofits
• Fundraising
• Public Speaking
• Blogging
• Editing
• Copy Editing
• Grant Writing
• Policy Analysis
• Politics
• Social Media
• Community Outreach
• Program Development