Yasmin Cader is a deputy legal director at the ACLU and the director of its Trone Center for Justice and Equality, which encompasses the National Prison Project, the Criminal Law Reform Project, the Racial Justice Program, the Capital Punishment Project, the John Adams Project, and the Abortion Criminal Defense Initiative. The Center advocates for the constitutional and civil rights of those impacted by the criminal legal system and strikes at the roots of racial injustice.
In Cader’s time as director, the Trone Center has driven groundbreaking litigation and advocacy efforts to transform the criminal legal system, including challenging the criminalization of poverty, state violence, and racial injustice. The Trone Center has also led litigation and advocacy to end the death penalty and to fight the criminalization of reproductive care, ensuring legal defense for providers and patients facing prosecution in the wake of abortion restrictions.
Cader has appeared in many media outlets, including Mother Jones, The Marshall Project, NBC News, and The Wall Street Journal. Her opinion pieces have appeared in the The Washington Post, The Hill, Teen Vogue, and Newsweek.
A graduate of Howard University and Yale Law School, Cader began her career as a judicial law clerk to the Honorable Damon J. Keith of the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals and later served as an Honors Program Trial Lawyer with the Employment Litigation Section of the U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division. Before joining the ACLU, she worked as a public defender in state and federal courts across the country. Cader currently lives in Los Angeles and is deeply involved with her community. Nationally, she is a leader in racial justice initiatives, mentoring the next generation of public interest lawyers, and serving in leadership roles with organizations like the Opportunity Agenda, Gideon’s Promise, the American College of Trial Lawyers, the National Criminal Defense College, and The Tsai Leadership Program at Yale Law School.
