Ryan P. Haygood, a nationally respected civil rights lawyer, is President & CEO of the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice.He has substantial experience successfully leading and managing not-for-profit organizations, litigating high-profile complex civil cases in federal and state courts and building coalitions to advocate for high-impact legislative and policy change. He is passionate about building, inspiring and supervising teams of professionals.Under Ryan’s leadership, the Institute’s racial justice advocacy—powered by a dynamic team and stellar Board of Trustees—has become a model for states as places to build community power from the ground up.Ryan and his team successfully championed the restoration of the vote to 83,000 people on probation and parole, a right denied since 1844; the establishment of online voter registration and early voting; and the end to prison-based gerrymandering. Ryan also led the Institute’s litigation efforts to defeat the Trump campaign’s challenge to NJ’s voting accommodations during the COVID pandemic and to ensure that voters’ ballots would not be rejected for signature mismatch reasons.Under Ryan’s leadership, the Institute has also become a leader on NJ’s racial wealth gap, publishing original racial wealth data and championing policies to close the state’s vast wealth disparities. Ryan oversees the Institute’s advocacy to expand homeownership opportunities; establish fair appraisal policies; and cancel student loan debt – as well as the Institute’s first-of-its-kind Say the Word: Reparations campaign for a state reparations council.Ryan has also led the Institute to the forefront of creating solutions to reduce the footprint of law enforcement and help keep communities safe.Ryan previously served as Deputy Director of Litigation at the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, where he worked for more than a decade and litigated important civil rights cases. In two of those cases, he was part of a team that defended a core provision of the Voting Rights Act before the United States Supreme Court. He also led LDF’s successful challenge to Texas’ racially discriminatory photo ID law. Ryan received his J.D. from the University of Colorado School of Law and B.A. cum laude from Colorado College, where he was nominated for a Rhodes Scholarship and earned academic and athletic All-American and hall of fame honors as a football player.
Listed skills include Legal Writing, Litigation, Legal Research, Civil Litigation, and 11 others.
