Princeton University awarded six honorary degrees during the 2025 commencement ceremony on May 27. Among the recipients was Sherrilyn Ifill, who earned a Doctor of Laws.
Attorney Sherrilyn Ifill has been heralded as a “visionary and transformational” leader in civil rights law. She is the inaugural Vernon E. Jordan, Jr., Esq. Endowed Chair in Civil Rights and founding director of the 14th Amendment Center for Law and Democracy at Howard University School of Law. Ifill served as the president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund from 2013 to 2022, and as an assistant counsel for the fund before that. She is now president and director-counsel emeritus. She also served on the faculty at the University of Maryland School of Law in Baltimore for 20 years. More recently, she was a Ford Foundation senior fellow and the Klinsky Visiting Professor for Leadership and Progress at Harvard Law School. Her legal career began as a fellow at the American Civil Liberties Union. Her books include “On the Courthouse Lawn: Confronting the Legacy of Lynching in the 21st Century” and the forthcoming “Is This America?” She was named Attorney of the Year by The American Lawyer in 2020 and was named to TIME Magazine’s 2021 list of the “100 Most Influential People in the World.” Her other honors include the Radcliffe Medal, the Brandeis Medal, the Thurgood Marshall Award from the American Bar Association, the 2021 Spirit of Excellence Award from the American Bar Association, and the Gold Medal from the New York State Bar Association. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Vassar College (A.B., 1984)
New York University School of Law (J.D., 1987)
A leader of the modern civil rights movement, she has helped shape national conversations about social justice and racial equality. Upon taking the helm of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund in 2013, she proudly carried forward the legacy of legendary jurist Thurgood Marshall, leading the organization through a transformative period of unrest and uncertainty as the nation grappled with the dual crises of a pandemic and a racial reckoning. In 2021, she was named one of TIME Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People for her steadfast defense of democracy. Now, as founding director of the 14th Amendment Center for Law and Democracy at Howard University School of Law, she is training the next generation of “drum majors for justice.”
SOURCE: Princeton University