CCJ Directory

Austin is a member of CCJ’s Board of Directors and chair of the Board’s Membership Committee. He also serves as a member of the Council’s Task Force on Artificial Intelligence and was a member of the Council’s Task Force on Policing.

Roy L. Austin, Jr. is the inaugural director of Howard University School of Law’s Artificial Intelligence Initiative. The initiative’s mission is to develop artificial intelligence solutions that advance civil and human rights, justice, fairness, and the rule of law. Previously, Austin was Meta’s vice president of civil rights and deputy general counsel. Before joining Meta, Austin was a partner with Harris, Wiltshire & Grannis LLP and McDermott Will & Emery, where he primarily practiced criminal defense, civil, and civil rights litigation.

During his nearly 20-year tenure in the federal government, Austin held several prominent positions. He began his career as an honors trial attorney with the Criminal Section of the U.S. Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, where he investigated and prosecuted hate crime and police brutality cases. He served as deputy assistant attorney general in the Civil Rights Division, where he supervised the criminal section and the special litigation section’s law enforcement portfolio. Austin also served on the White House Domestic Policy Council as deputy assistant to the president for the Office of Urban Affairs, Justice, and Opportunity, where he co-authored a report on Big Data and Civil Rights, worked with the President’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing, helped develop the Police Data Initiative, worked on the expansion of reentry assistance, and was a member of President Obama’s My Brother’s Keeper Task Force.