The Philadelphia Chapter of the National Bar Association, Women Lawyers Division (WLD) joins in solidarity to lift the life and legacy of Carol “Lani” Guinier who died on January 7, 2022. Lani Guinier was born on April 19, 1950, in New York. She earned her B.A. from Radcliffe College in 1971 and her J.D. from Yale Law School in 1974.  Ms. Guinier was an accomplished lawyer, author, law professor and civil rights advocate who devoted her life to advancing principles of equality and justice.

She was most known for her fierce advocacy of African American civil rights and issues of voting rights and affirmative action which she believed were seminal to American democracy. She served as head of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund’s voting rights project and worked tirelessly to defend the Voting Rights Act and its protections for Black voters. Most notably, she  defeated Congressional efforts to amend the Act to require challengers to discriminatory voting practices to meet the nearly impossible standard of proving the practices were implemented with discriminatory intent.

A noted scholar, She was the first woman of color to be given tenure at Harvard Law School in 1998. Ms. Guinier also wrote over two dozen scholarly articles and op-eds, as well as additional books: The Miner’s Canary: Enlisting Race, Resisting Power, Transforming Democracy (2002); Tyranny of the Meritocracy: Democratizing Higher Education in America (2015); The Tyranny of the Majority (1994); and Becoming Gentlemen: Women, Law School and Institutional Change (1997).

Ms. Guinier’s legacy as a trailblazing civil rights attorney and prolific legal scholar is unsurpassed. As for those in our beloved legal sisterhood, she will continue to be mourned and solemnly remembered as part of WLD’s history for her contributions and special guest appearance at our June 8, 1993 luncheon.