Professor Robin A. Lenhardt and Reverend Timothy Levi Adkins-Jones have joined the NJ Institute for Social Justice’s Board of Trustees.

Professor Lenhardt and Reverend Adkins-Jones join a dedicated team of highly respected leaders committed to advancing progressive solutions to the greatest social and racial justice challenges of our time.

Professor Lenhardt is a Professor of Law and the Faculty Director of the Center on Race, Law and Justice at Fordham University School of Law. She specializes in legal matters involving race, family, and citizenship.

A former law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer and Judge Hugh Bownes of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, Professor Lenhardt also served as Counsel in the Washington, D.C. office of Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering, where she was a member of the litigation team that defended the University of Michigan in the Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger affirmative action lawsuits. Professor Lenhardt received a Skadden Foundation Fellowship to work as a staff attorney for the National Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and was employed as an attorney advisor in the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel. She later returned to DOJ to review civil rights issues as part of President Barack Obama’s transition team.

After graduating from Brown University, Professor Lenhardt earned her JD at Harvard Law School, an MPA at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and an LLM from the Georgetown University Law Center.

Before being called to Bethany Baptist Church, one of Newark’s most storied places of worship, Reverend Adkins-Jones led congregations in Massachusetts and Connecticut, building a legacy of community activism and Christian service.

He serves as part of the Clergy Caucus for Faith in New Jersey, a non-partisan, multi-faith organization seeking social and economic change through policy and relationships.

Embodying the best of the Black preacher-scholar tradition, Reverend Adkins-Jones is a PhD candidate in Practical Theology with a Homiletics concentration at Boston University. He holds a BA in psychology from Amherst College and an MDiv from the Boston University School of Theology. He is a sought-out lecturer and speaker across the nation.