Project Director, Education Equity

Founded in 1923, the ACLU SoCal has been at the forefront of many major efforts to protect civil liberties, civil rights, and equal justice in California. Principled and nonpartisan, the ACLU SoCal has offices in Los Angeles, the Inland Empire (San Bernardino), and Kern County (Bakersfield). The ACLU SoCal tackles a vast array of issues, including police practices, criminal justice, First Amendment rights, voting rights, gender equity, reproductive justice, LGBTQ rights, immigrants' rights, education equity, and economic justice.

About the Role

The ACLU of Southern California’s Education Equity Team advocates for the rights of students in California to educational equity. Our foremost priority is to ensure that all students receive an excellent education, particularly Black, Indigenous, and disabled students, and other students who traditionally have been marginalized and under-resourced. Specifically, it has brought lawsuits, sponsored legislation, and led advocacy campaigns to increase resources for high-need students, eliminate the school-to-prison-to-deportation pipeline, eliminate school pushout, protect student expression, among other subjects.

Reporting to the Chief Advocacy and Legal Officer, the Education Equity Project Director will lead and manage the interdisciplinary team, which includes litigators, policy counsels, policy advocates, and/or organizers throughout the region. They will establish and guide the vision, act as the primary spokesperson, and oversee both long- and short-term complex, multi-disciplinary campaigns to drive significant change. The Project Director will manage annual planning and budgeting, supervise team members across multiple offices, and collaborate with the Communications and Media Advocacy team to develop and support communications strategies. They will work with Advocacy Department staff who engage volunteers to advance priority campaigns and power-building goals and the Development team to support fundraising efforts.

The Project Director will also directly engage in advocacy and campaigns and collaborate with other project directors, attorneys, policy advocates, and organizers on intersectional work across the organization. The Project Director will supervise the legal work of the Project. Additionally, the Project Director will work with statewide teams and support legislative advocacy efforts as needed.

The position requires a willingness to work beyond a standard 7.5-hour workday, including evening and weekend meetings and events. Work weeks more than 37.5 hours are anticipated to be common.

The Project Director is expected to model professional workplace behavior and standards, and clearly and enthusiastically demonstrate guiding principles of integrity, respect, accountability, compassion, and leadership.

Responsibilities

• Envision, design, build, lead, and manage an active, innovative program focused on Education Equity, incorporating policy advocacy, litigation, legal advocacy, legislative initiatives, administrative actions, electoral efforts, organizing, public education, civic engagement, and strategic communications.
• Serve as the primary subject matter expert and spokesperson for the project area’s initiatives.
• Lead planning and budgeting processes for the project’s priorities, engage in intersectional planning with other projects, and manage the budget effectively.
• Supervise staff attorneys, fellows, policy counsels, policy advocates, and organizers, providing subject-matter supervision and support for other team members working on related issues.
• Forge and maintain relationships with people impacted by and have been through the systems we are trying to change, community partners, decision-makers, government officials, allied organizations, and academics to implement collaborative projects and foster positive, effective working relationships while focusing on a people power-based theory of change.
• Meaningfully incorporate people who have been impacted by the systems we are seeking to change into all aspects of the team’s work, helping to elevate and center their expertise and leadership whenever possible.
• Collaborate with and provide support to people in other ACLU affiliates in California ACLU California Action, as well as colleagues at the national ACLU.
• Serve as primary contact with the Communications and Media Advocacy Department to collaborate on and implement communications advocacy strategies.
• Serve as primary contact with the Development Department to support fundraising efforts, manage grants and interface with donors and boards, as needed.
• Design, manage and implement advocacy, education, organizing and narrative change campaigns to achieve policy change.
• Center principles of equity, inclusion, and belonging in all work, embedding the values in program development, policy application, and organizational practices and processes.
• Demonstrate a commitment to the mission of the ACLU.
• Demonstrate a commitment to diversity within the office using a personal approach that values all individuals and respects differences in regard to race, ethnicity, age, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, religion, disability and socio-economic circumstance.

RACIAL EQUITY COMPETENCIES:

Understanding and Applying Racial Equity

• Demonstrate commitment to building or deepening understand of racial equity:
• Core terms and concepts such as structural racism, white privilege, and anti- Blackness.
• The role that racial inequity has played and continues to play in our society.
• How race impacts supervisory relationships, team dynamics, and organizational culture.

Working for Racial Equity

• Consistently assess structural implications and racially disproportionate impacts of policies, activities, and decisions within the context of their job responsibilities; race/ethnicity, intersection of race/ethnicity, gender and/or sexual orientation.
• Consistently adhere to organization’s racial equity policies and procedures, including those that relate to hiring, retention, and promotion.
• Consistently identify and disrupt ways in which bias plays out in work and/or team.

Leading on Racial Equity

• Effectively encourage people to have honest conversations about racial equity, and accept feedback openly, non-defensively, and from a posture of learning.
• Consistently address structural implications and racially disproportionate impacts of policies, activities, and decisions by identifying and implementing changes that can produce more equitable outcomes. This applies not only in terms of race/ethnicity, but also at the intersection of race/ethnicity, gender and/or sexual orientation.
• Consistently set racial equity outcomes, goals, and performance measures for team, department, or organization, and develop and successfully implement plans to achieve them.

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