Judith Browne Dianis

Kettering Democracy Prize Recipient 2025

In 2025, the Charles F. Kettering Foundation awarded the Kettering Democracy Prize to Judith Browne Dianis, a trailblazing civil rights lawyer, professor, and passionate advocate for racial justice and democracy. As executive director of the Advancement Project, she has spent decades leading the fight against structural racism—in schools, voting systems, policing, immigration, and the criminal justice system—while empowering communities to demand fairness, dignity, and a voice. 

Born and raised in Hollis, a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Queens, by parents deeply rooted in education and activism, Dianis’s commitment to justice was shaped early. At the University of Pennsylvania, she stood up against campus racism, sparking a lifelong journey in movement lawyering. After earning her law degree from Columbia University and receiving a prestigious Skadden Fellowship, she became managing attorney at the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund in Washington, DC. 

In 1999, she cofounded the Advancement Project, where she has worked alongside grassroots partners to challenge inequities and drive meaningful change. Her influential reports, Opportunities Suspended and Derailed: The Schoolhouse to Jailhouse Track, helped shift national conversations on school discipline and youth criminalization. Through storytelling and advocacy, including the Webby-nominated video series How Cops Get Off, Dianis has made the urgent case for justice accessible to wide audiences. 

A pivotal figure in the fight for voting rights, Dianis helped launch the Advancement Project’s voter protection work during the 2000 Florida election crisis. Her leadership contributed to landmark victories, including Florida’s Amendment 4, which restored voting rights to millions with past felony convictions—an extraordinary step toward a more inclusive democracy. 

Dianis continues to be a powerful voice for equity and democratic participation, both in the media and in her work, which stands as a testament to what’s possible when law and activism unite in service of justice.