The Honorable Nelson A. Díaz Professorship in Law Annual Lectureship Latinx and the Law: A Conversation with ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero

Under Romero’s leadership, the ACLU has pursued aggressive litigation and advocacy around the greatest injustices of our time, including: challenges to the war on terror and fighting to close Guantánamo; protecting the right to free speech—regardless of ideology—across the internet and social media platforms, in classrooms and on campuses, and in the public square; combating racial disparities within the criminal justice system, reducing mass incarceration, and advocating for the commutation of federal death sentences; winning the freedom to marry for same-sex couples and ensuring federal civil rights protections for LGBTQ workers; and fighting assaults on transgender rights and dignity. The ACLU brought 434 legal actions during the first Trump Administration and Romero has vowed to do the same, if necessary, during President Trump’s second term. 

Romero revamped and scaled the ACLU’s political program, resulting in winning ballot referenda to protect abortion rights for millions across the nation; and the launch of the ACLU’s first political action committee—the ACLU Voter Education Fund—in 2024. He also launched a nationwide Systemic Equality campaign for racial justice. 

With a staffed presence in every state, and covering the waterfront of issues from free speech, abortion rights, immigrants’ rights, racial justice, and LGBTQ rights, among other issues, the ACLU stands alone in its commitment to defending the rights and liberties of all people in the United States. A nonpartisan organization, the ACLU advances civil liberties and civil rights without respect to political affiliation and holds Democratic and Republican leaders alike accountable to the Constitution. 

Romero is the ACLU’s sixth executive director and the first Latino and openly gay man to serve in that capacity.  

Romero’s parents hailed from Puerto Rico, and he was the first in his family to graduate from high school. A graduate of Stanford University Law School and the Princeton University School of Public Policy and International Affairs, he has served on numerous nonprofit boards and is currently a Trustee of Princeton University.   

Dean Rebouché has served as a co-investigator on two grant-funded research projects related to reproductive health, one housed at the Emory University Rollins School of Public Health and another funded by the World Health Organization. Her recent research also includes articles in law reviews and in peer-reviewed journals on abortion law, relational contracts, gestational surrogacy, prenatal genetic testing and genetic counseling, collaborative divorce, parental involvement laws, and international reproductive rights.

Dean Rebouché received a J.D. from Harvard Law School, an LL.M. from Queen’s University, Belfast, and a B.A. from Trinity University. Prior to law school, she worked as a researcher for the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission and the Human Rights Centre at Queen’s University, Belfast. After law school, Dean Rebouché clerked for Justice Kate O’Regan on the Constitutional Court of South Africa and practiced law in Washington, D.C., where she served as an associate director of adolescent health programs at the National Partnership for Women & Families (formerly, the Women’s Legal Defense Fund) and as a Women’s Law and Public Policy Fellow at the National Women’s Law Center.

From his humble beginnings, this native New Yorker grew up in a public housing development in Harlem. He dedicated his life to fight for the expansion of civil and human rights for all. As a recipient of three United States Presidential Appointments, his public service exemplifies the qualities of intelligence, imagination and judgment impacting public policy nationwide as evidenced by the “Díaz Opinion”. This “breakthrough opinion” helped inaugurate a new model for affordable housing development using mixed finance through public/private funding and mixed low income and market rate units to revitalize housing for the poor.

As champion for diversity, equity and inclusion, Judge Díaz has mentored young professionals throughout his career. He advocated for marginalized and underrepresented groups, including African Americans and other communities of color, Soviet Jews, women, Latinos and the Puerto Rican diaspora. As a leader in economic development, pioneer in court reform, champion for fair housing, fighter for bilingual education, employment and voting rights, as well as, immigration protections, Judge Díaz positively impacted the lives of the voiceless and the most vulnerable.

Nelson A. Díaz monitored elections in Latin America; he was the first American Judge to sit on a Japanese Court as a Japan Society Fellow; he fought for the human rights of Soviet Jews in USSR and he taught the American legal and jurisprudence system in Albania, Peru, Columbia and China. As a co-founder of the Latino-Jewish Coalition of the American Jewish Committee, he promoted stronger collaboration between the two communities. This Fulbright Scholar, received five (5) Honorary Doctorate Degrees and numerous awards in recognition of his legal contributions including the Justice Sonia Sotomayor Diversity Award.  The Legal Intelligencer awarded 100 of Pennsylvania’s most influential attorneys with a Lifetime Achievement Award including Judge Díaz.

In his numerous ground-breaking professional roles, as a partner in a Top 100 law firm, City Solicitor of Philadelphia, or Corporate Director of Exelon Corporation, a fortune 100 company, Nelson Díaz has fought for diversity, equity and inclusion in the public and private sectors and paved the way for many others.

His powerful and inspirational autobiography, “Not from Here, Not from There – No Soy De Aquí Ni De Allá,” which has been positively received, Díaz said, “I may have been the first but I don’t want to be the last.”