The President and Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund breaks down what is at stake for
Janai Nelson has spent her career in the most consequential rooms in American law. As President and Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, she has argued before the Supreme Court, challenged voter ID laws designed to disenfranchise Black and Latino voters, and led the legal charge against executive orders threatening DEI programs nationwide. A Fulbright Scholar and former law professor, Nelson brings both intellectual rigor and lived urgency to a fight that has never been more pressing. She joined Rolling Out’s “Justice for All” to talk about what is happening to Black voting rights right now and what it will take to keep democracy accessible for those it has historically excluded.
What was at stake for Black voters in that Supreme Court voting case last year?
Last year, we argued a case twice in the Supreme Court, which is very rare. That case is called Louisiana v. Callais. The first time, it was a redistricting case dealing with the fact that Black people did not have enough of an opportunity to elect candidates of their choice in Louisiana. The Supreme Court heard argument in March but did not issue a decision, so they asked us to come back in October. When they sent us the questions, we realized they were looking at the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act itself, specifically our ability to get districts that help Black people elect candidates of their choice after discrimination has been proven.
Louisiana has a Black population that is the second-highest in the country by percentage, at 33%. When we saw that only 1 out of 6 congressional districts allowed Black people to elect someone of their choosing, we knew something was amiss. We proved that discrimination, and in October we were there to defend both the district we obtained as a remedy and the constitutionality of the Voting Rights Act as a whole.
How much of the Voting Rights Act is still working the way it was meant to?
The Voting Rights Act, sadly, in the past 10 to 13 years, has been whittled down to be much weaker than intended. When it was passed in 1965, it came as a result of protest and people putting their bodies on the line, because the promise of the 15th Amendment was never put into effect until that moment. That legislation was challenged from the very beginning, and the challengers have been gaining ground. They struck down Section 5, one of the most important provisions. They have weakened Section 2, but there is still a robust application of it, which is what we rely on in our lawsuits. Now they are coming for that too, and we are putting up the most rigorous defense you can imagine.
What did the Texas voter ID case reveal about how suppression actually works?
What we see time and again is that they choose forms of ID that most Black people do not have. In Texas, you could use a gun permit to vote but not your ID from a state college or public housing. These are government-funded entities. The identification issued for people in public housing or attending a state school should be just as reliable as a gun permit, but it was not, because if you look at who holds each type of ID, you see a stark racial difference. The legislature acted surgically. We proved it discriminated intentionally against Black and Latino voters and got that law struck down. Now they have come back with other laws, including the SAVE Act, which I call the Stop All Voters Everywhere Act, requiring proof of citizenship through only three types of documents, and we continue to fight those at every level.
The DEI fight is back. What did challenging that executive order teach you?
This fight has been going on for a very long time. In the first Trump administration in 2016, he issued an order against any entities that received federal grants and pursued DEI. Those are principles that are not unlawful. They ensure workplaces that do not violate our civil rights and equal opportunities for everyone to pursue the American dream. This attack is another boogeyman, just like the attack on woke and so many other communities and ideas they try to racialize to make it seem as if people are not earning their way in this world. We know, as Black people, that is absolutely not the case. LDF has been challenging these unlawful orders and trying to expose that hypocrisy.
Why does the shape of a district on a map determine whether a vote counts?
Redistricting redraws district lines so each has roughly the same number of people, which is what makes your vote equal to mine. Every 10 years we get a census, and with that data we draw congressional, school board, city council and municipal districts. It is also important that we draw districts without splitting up communities, because people who share concerns about schools and economic opportunities want to elect candidates who can address those issues. Unfortunately, legislators will look at those communities and deliberately divide them, especially Black communities and other marginalized communities that have the potential to shift a power structure that remains primarily White and male-dominant. That is how the weight of your vote gets diluted before you ever set foot in a polling place.
You studied in Ghana. How did that change the way you see the fight here?
I was fortunate to have a Fulbright Award in Ghana, and that was foundational to my outlook. I went because I was interested in the right to vote for people who are incarcerated, who are still citizens and still care about their communities. Ghana allowed incarcerated people to vote under their constitution. I spent a year studying their prison system, their electoral system and speaking with elected officials to understand the gap between what the law said and what was happening on the ground. Here it is very different. We do not allow incarcerated people to vote, and we barely allow people returning from incarceration to vote. In doing that, we are denying them their rights as citizens and losing a critical voice. That is something I have been fighting for throughout my entire career.
How do you carry Thurgood Marshall’s legacy while fighting today’s battles?
Thurgood Marshall founded the Legal Defense Fund 86 years ago. He and an incredible group of lawyers saw a vision of America that did not yet exist and that every marker around them said could not exist. The way I carry that legacy forward is to hold that same vision. To recognize that what we see right now is not how things have to be. We have the intellect, the acumen, the resilience and the vision to imagine a better America even when everything around us insists it is not possible. That is when I draw most on this institution that has helped transform this country many times over and is poised to do it again.
How do you decide where to focus when the LDF is fighting on so many fronts?
Prioritization is everything. We are laser-focused on the upcoming elections and voting rights, because as the Supreme Court said in the 1800s, the right to vote is preservative of all rights. If we cannot elect people who can help advance our rights, we are in a very bad position. We also fight to protect the right to protest, because that is a tool of transformation, and if we lose the ability to protest, we are giving up one of the most powerful tools we have under the First Amendment. And we are fighting for truthful education, making sure that propaganda does not overcome the truth of our history and the triumphs that have carried us forward.
What can a classroom not teach the next generation of civil rights lawyers?
What you do not get in any classroom is the practical application, using what you are learning in circumstances where it can have real consequences. That is why we love having externs and interns who we help bridge the gap between theory and practice. One of the most exciting ways we do that is through our Marshall Motley Scholars Program, named after Thurgood Marshall and Constance Baker Motley, one of the most influential women lawyers this country has ever known. The program has given 50 students full financial support to attend law school, placed them at LDF to train as interns and fellows, and then sent them to the South, where most Black people live, to serve those communities.
What do you say to someone in the Black community who feels their vote does not matter?
I say I understand, because I actually was that person when I was much younger. I doubted the power of the right to vote and did not want to do this work because I felt there were more urgent issues in the criminal justice system and education. What I did not recognize is that it is nearly impossible to effect change in any of those areas without the right to vote and the ability to hold representatives accountable. What people make the mistake of believing is that casting a vote alone will change the world. That is just the beginning. When we join our votes together as a community, we can elect someone accountable to us and give them an agenda of what we want to see happen. The right to vote is the one power we hold in equal measure. Whether you are the richest or poorest person in this country, if you are a citizen 18 years or older, your vote carries the same weight as anyone else’s. To give that up is giving your power away.