Lani Guinier - Early Life and Career

Early Life and Career

Born in New York City, Guinier is the daughter of a white Jewish mother, Eugenia Paprin, and the black Jamaican-born scholar Ewart Guinier, who also served as Harvard professor (and chair) of the Afro-American Studies Department in 1969. Guinier has said that she wanted to be a civil rights lawyer since she was twelve years old. After graduating from Radcliffe College in 1971 and Yale Law School in 1974, she clerked for Judge Damon Keith then served as special assistant to then Assistant Attorney General Drew S. Days in the Civil Rights Division in the Carter Administration. In 1981, after Ronald Reagan took office, she joined the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF) as an assistant counsel, eventually becoming head of its Voting Rights project.

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