Professor of Law, American University; Washington College of Law
Robert Dinerstein is professor of law and director of the Disability Rights Law Clinic at American University Washington College of Law (AUWCL), where he has taught since 1983. His previous positions include serving as the law school's acting dean (2020-2021), associate dean for academic affairs from (1997-2004), associate dean for experiential education (2012-2018), and director of the clinical program (1988-96 and 2008-2018). He specializes in the fields of clinical education and disability law, especially mental disabilities law (including issues of consent/choice, capacity and supported decision-making and other alternatives to guardianship), the Americans with Disabilities Act, the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, legal representation of clients with mental disabilities, and disability and international human rights.
Dinerstein has made numerous presentations on clinical legal education and disability law, among other topics, and has published a number of books, articles, chapters and other writing on these subjects.
He is the author/editor of two books. He is co-editor and co-author, with the late Stanley Herr and Joan O’Sullivan, of A Guide to Consent (AAMR, 1999). He is co-author, with the late Stephen Ellmann, Isabelle Gunning, Kate Kruse and Ann Shalleck, of Lawyers and Clients: Critical Issues in Interviewing and Counseling (Thomson West 2009) and the accompanying Teacher’s Manual.
Among Dinerstein’s recent publications in the disability law area, he is the author of:
In the area of legal education and lawyering, his recent articles include “New Wine and New Bottles (on experiential legal education),” 44 Syllabus 2 (Winter 2012-13), Publication of ABA Section on Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar; as co-author (with Margaret Barry, Phyllis Goldfarb, Peggy Maisel and Linda Morton) “Exploring the Meaning of Experiential Deaning,” 67(3) Journal of Legal Education 660 (2018); and ‘The Clinical Law Review at 25: What Hath We Wrought?, 26(1) Clinical Law Review 147 (2019) (25th Anniversary Symposium Issue). He has written extensively on issues of clinical pedagogy and lawyering, in particular, client-centered counseling [especially in his article, “Client-Centered Counseling: Reappraisal and Refinement,” 32 Arizona L. Rev. 501 (1990).] He has also written and presented on the US Department of Justice’s record of enforcement of the rights of persons with disabilities under several administrations.
Dinerstein was appointed by President Clinton in 1994 to serve on the President's Committee on Mental Retardation (now called the President’s Committee on People with Intellectual Disabilities), on which he served until 2001. From 2018-2021, he was a commissioner on the ABA Commission on Disability Rights, and from 2021-present serves as the ABA Section on Civil Rights and Social Justice’s liaison to the Commission. Internationally, he has consulted for the World Health Organization (Ghana and Malawi) and the Open Society Foundations (Ghana and Zambia) regarding the revision of mental health laws and was a signatory to the Montreal Declaration on Intellectual Disabilities, adopted in Montreal, Canada in October 2004. He also has consulted with the Open Society Foundations regarding disability rights clinics and disability rights curricula in Latin America and Southern Africa. Domestically, he has consulted for the Ford Foundation, Public Welfare Foundation and the US Department of Health and Human Services and the US Department of Education on issues related to legal services, disability law and poverty law. He is the principal investigator for the Disability and Human Rights Fellows program, which receives support from the Open Society Foundations.
Prior to joining AUWCL, Dinerstein worked as an attorney in the U.S. Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division, Special Litigation Section, where he handled federal court cases on the rights of people in institutions for people with psychosocial disabilities, people with intellectual disabilities and juveniles. In addition to the Disability Rights Law Clinic, which he founded (and which handles special education, supported decision making, advance mental health directives, Titles I-III of the ADA, and other cases), he teaches a seminar on law and disability and has taught interviewing and counseling, legal ethics, the supervised externship seminar, and the criminal justice clinic (which he directed from 1989-1996).
Dinerstein is actively involved in organizations related to legal education nationally. He was a member (elected) of the Council of the American Bar Association Section on Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar (2006-2011), and previously was on the section’s Standards Review Committee, where he was vice chair. He has been a member of 17 ABA-AALS joint site inspection teams, chairing four teams. Within the Association of American Law Schools, he was a member of the membership review committee and has, among other things, chaired the sections on clinical legal education, law and community, disability law and law and mental disability law, as well as the committees on clinical legal education, sections and the annual meeting, and the planning committee for the 2006 clinical teachers’ conference. He has been a member of a number of other planning committees, including for the AALS New Teachers’ Conference.
Dinerstein currently sits on the boards of directors of the Equal Rights Center (president), and the New Hope Community, Inc. and Foundation, and in the past has served on the boards of the Quality Trust for Individuals with Disabilities, Inc. (founding board member & president, 2001-2016), Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless, Inc. (founding board member and long-term treasurer, 1986-2015), Advocates for Justice and Education (treasurer), the District of Columbia Bar Board of Governors (elected; 2002-05), Society of American Law Teachers (elected), Mental Disability Rights International (founding board member; now called Disability Rights International), Legal Counsel for the Elderly, and the Maryland Disability Law Center; and the steering committee for the Jacobus tenBroek annual disability law symposium sponsored by the National Federation of the Blind (founding member, and member until 2019).
Among his many awards and honors, Dinerstein has received the WCL Outstanding Service Award (2017-18); been named a Fellow of the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (2016) and received the Paul G. Hearne Award for Disability Rights (ABA, 2013); (with Ann Shalleck) the Egon Guttman Casebook Award (2011-12) for Lawyers and Clients; the William Pincus Award for his contributions to clinical legal education (2010); American University Awards for Scholar-Teacher of the Year (2013), Outstanding Teaching in a Full-Time Appointment (2009) and Faculty-Administrator Award for Outstanding Service to the University Community (2002); and the Pro Bono Service Award from the International Human Rights Law Group (1988).
He has an A.B. degree from Cornell University and a J.D. degree from Yale Law School. He is listed in Who's Who in America).
Vice President & Senior Legal Fellow, Defending Education
Sarah Parshall Perry is vice president and senior legal fellow at Defending Education.
Before coming to Defending Education, Sarah served as a Senior Legal Fellow for the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, part of the Institute for Constitutional Government at Heritage, where her work centered on civil rights and the proper role of the courts.
Sarah joined Heritage after serving as Senior Counsel to the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Education where she focused on policy reform, technical guidance, and the Office for Civil Rights’ (OCR) annual report to Congress. While at OCR, she was appointed by the Acting Assistant Secretary to co-chair the Employment Engagement, Diversity, & Inclusion Council and, in coordination with the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Enforcement oversee the hiring of dozens of attorneys for OCR’s 12 regional offices nationwide. Prior to her tenure at the Department of Education, she spent six years at the Family Research Council in Washington, D.C. where she was Senior Fellow for Education Reform and later, became the regular substitute host for the “Washington Watch” radio show. Her work at the Family Research Council also included the building and oversight of multiple policy coalitions geared toward the fight against antisemitism in academia, curbing tech censorship, and protecting religious liberty.
Before joining FRC, Sarah was in-house counsel and director of development for a Baltimore advertising agency, providing management of all new business transactions from pitch to contract execution for the multi-million-dollar enterprise. She began her practice at the litigation firm of Simms Showers, LLP where her work included Title VII employment discrimination, maritime/admiralty, and False Claims Act (“Qui Tam”) law. Sarah has a law degree from the University of Virginia School of Law, where she was an editor of the Virginia Journal of International Law, a recipient of the American Jurisprudence award, a Phi Delta Phi honor society member, and a student practitioner in the appellate litigation clinic where she argued before the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals. She holds a B.S. in Journalism with honors from Liberty University.
Her commentary and analysis have appeared in media outlets across the country, including the AP, BBC, Fox News, NPR, The Hill, Washington Post, Washington Times, and the New York Times. She is the mother of three children, and the author of just as many books on the trials and triumphs of parenting children on the autism spectrum. Sarah is a member of the Kirkpatrick Society at the American Enterprise Institute, and makes her home north of Baltimore, Maryland.
Former Acting Assistant Secretary and Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary, U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights
Kimberly M. Richey served as acting assistant secretary and principal deputy assistant secretary in the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) at the U.S Department of Education (DOE). Earlier, Richey served as the acting assistant secretary and deputy assistant secretary in the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services at the DOE. Richey was the managing director of federal advocacy and public policy at the National School Boards Association, and earlier she represented the Oklahoma State Department of Education, the State Board of Education, and the state superintendent of public instruction as their general counsel.
Richey was general counsel and associate director of the Oklahoma Council on Law Enforcement Education and Training, a postsecondary education agency focused on peace officer training, and also served the DOE as counselor to the assistant secretary in the Office for Civil Rights. During that time, Richey was also acting chief of staff in the Office of Legislation and Congressional Affairs.
Richey is a certified teacher and is licensed to practice law in Oklahoma, Texas, and the District of Columbia. She holds a J.D. from the University of Oklahoma and a bachelor’s degree in education from Southern Nazarene University. Richey is a native of Corpus Christi, Texas.
Professor of Law, American University; Washington College of Law
Robert Dinerstein is professor of law and director of the Disability Rights Law Clinic at American University Washington College of Law (AUWCL), where he has taught since 1983. His previous positions include serving as the law school's acting dean (2020-2021), associate dean for academic affairs from (1997-2004), associate dean for experiential education (2012-2018), and director of the clinical program (1988-96 and 2008-2018). He specializes in the fields of clinical education and disability law, especially mental disabilities law (including issues of consent/choice, capacity and supported decision-making and other alternatives to guardianship), the Americans with Disabilities Act, the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, legal representation of clients with mental disabilities, and disability and international human rights.
Dinerstein has made numerous presentations on clinical legal education and disability law, among other topics, and has published a number of books, articles, chapters and other writing on these subjects.
He is the author/editor of two books. He is co-editor and co-author, with the late Stanley Herr and Joan O’Sullivan, of A Guide to Consent (AAMR, 1999). He is co-author, with the late Stephen Ellmann, Isabelle Gunning, Kate Kruse and Ann Shalleck, of Lawyers and Clients: Critical Issues in Interviewing and Counseling (Thomson West 2009) and the accompanying Teacher’s Manual.
Among Dinerstein’s recent publications in the disability law area, he is the author of:
In the area of legal education and lawyering, his recent articles include “New Wine and New Bottles (on experiential legal education),” 44 Syllabus 2 (Winter 2012-13), Publication of ABA Section on Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar; as co-author (with Margaret Barry, Phyllis Goldfarb, Peggy Maisel and Linda Morton) “Exploring the Meaning of Experiential Deaning,” 67(3) Journal of Legal Education 660 (2018); and ‘The Clinical Law Review at 25: What Hath We Wrought?, 26(1) Clinical Law Review 147 (2019) (25th Anniversary Symposium Issue). He has written extensively on issues of clinical pedagogy and lawyering, in particular, client-centered counseling [especially in his article, “Client-Centered Counseling: Reappraisal and Refinement,” 32 Arizona L. Rev. 501 (1990).] He has also written and presented on the US Department of Justice’s record of enforcement of the rights of persons with disabilities under several administrations.
Dinerstein was appointed by President Clinton in 1994 to serve on the President's Committee on Mental Retardation (now called the President’s Committee on People with Intellectual Disabilities), on which he served until 2001. From 2018-2021, he was a commissioner on the ABA Commission on Disability Rights, and from 2021-present serves as the ABA Section on Civil Rights and Social Justice’s liaison to the Commission. Internationally, he has consulted for the World Health Organization (Ghana and Malawi) and the Open Society Foundations (Ghana and Zambia) regarding the revision of mental health laws and was a signatory to the Montreal Declaration on Intellectual Disabilities, adopted in Montreal, Canada in October 2004. He also has consulted with the Open Society Foundations regarding disability rights clinics and disability rights curricula in Latin America and Southern Africa. Domestically, he has consulted for the Ford Foundation, Public Welfare Foundation and the US Department of Health and Human Services and the US Department of Education on issues related to legal services, disability law and poverty law. He is the principal investigator for the Disability and Human Rights Fellows program, which receives support from the Open Society Foundations.
Prior to joining AUWCL, Dinerstein worked as an attorney in the U.S. Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division, Special Litigation Section, where he handled federal court cases on the rights of people in institutions for people with psychosocial disabilities, people with intellectual disabilities and juveniles. In addition to the Disability Rights Law Clinic, which he founded (and which handles special education, supported decision making, advance mental health directives, Titles I-III of the ADA, and other cases), he teaches a seminar on law and disability and has taught interviewing and counseling, legal ethics, the supervised externship seminar, and the criminal justice clinic (which he directed from 1989-1996).
Dinerstein is actively involved in organizations related to legal education nationally. He was a member (elected) of the Council of the American Bar Association Section on Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar (2006-2011), and previously was on the section’s Standards Review Committee, where he was vice chair. He has been a member of 17 ABA-AALS joint site inspection teams, chairing four teams. Within the Association of American Law Schools, he was a member of the membership review committee and has, among other things, chaired the sections on clinical legal education, law and community, disability law and law and mental disability law, as well as the committees on clinical legal education, sections and the annual meeting, and the planning committee for the 2006 clinical teachers’ conference. He has been a member of a number of other planning committees, including for the AALS New Teachers’ Conference.
Dinerstein currently sits on the boards of directors of the Equal Rights Center (president), and the New Hope Community, Inc. and Foundation, and in the past has served on the boards of the Quality Trust for Individuals with Disabilities, Inc. (founding board member & president, 2001-2016), Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless, Inc. (founding board member and long-term treasurer, 1986-2015), Advocates for Justice and Education (treasurer), the District of Columbia Bar Board of Governors (elected; 2002-05), Society of American Law Teachers (elected), Mental Disability Rights International (founding board member; now called Disability Rights International), Legal Counsel for the Elderly, and the Maryland Disability Law Center; and the steering committee for the Jacobus tenBroek annual disability law symposium sponsored by the National Federation of the Blind (founding member, and member until 2019).
Among his many awards and honors, Dinerstein has received the WCL Outstanding Service Award (2017-18); been named a Fellow of the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (2016) and received the Paul G. Hearne Award for Disability Rights (ABA, 2013); (with Ann Shalleck) the Egon Guttman Casebook Award (2011-12) for Lawyers and Clients; the William Pincus Award for his contributions to clinical legal education (2010); American University Awards for Scholar-Teacher of the Year (2013), Outstanding Teaching in a Full-Time Appointment (2009) and Faculty-Administrator Award for Outstanding Service to the University Community (2002); and the Pro Bono Service Award from the International Human Rights Law Group (1988).
He has an A.B. degree from Cornell University and a J.D. degree from Yale Law School. He is listed in Who's Who in America).
Vice President & Senior Legal Fellow, Defending Education
Sarah Parshall Perry is vice president and senior legal fellow at Defending Education.
Before coming to Defending Education, Sarah served as a Senior Legal Fellow for the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, part of the Institute for Constitutional Government at Heritage, where her work centered on civil rights and the proper role of the courts.
Sarah joined Heritage after serving as Senior Counsel to the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Education where she focused on policy reform, technical guidance, and the Office for Civil Rights’ (OCR) annual report to Congress. While at OCR, she was appointed by the Acting Assistant Secretary to co-chair the Employment Engagement, Diversity, & Inclusion Council and, in coordination with the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Enforcement oversee the hiring of dozens of attorneys for OCR’s 12 regional offices nationwide. Prior to her tenure at the Department of Education, she spent six years at the Family Research Council in Washington, D.C. where she was Senior Fellow for Education Reform and later, became the regular substitute host for the “Washington Watch” radio show. Her work at the Family Research Council also included the building and oversight of multiple policy coalitions geared toward the fight against antisemitism in academia, curbing tech censorship, and protecting religious liberty.
Before joining FRC, Sarah was in-house counsel and director of development for a Baltimore advertising agency, providing management of all new business transactions from pitch to contract execution for the multi-million-dollar enterprise. She began her practice at the litigation firm of Simms Showers, LLP where her work included Title VII employment discrimination, maritime/admiralty, and False Claims Act (“Qui Tam”) law. Sarah has a law degree from the University of Virginia School of Law, where she was an editor of the Virginia Journal of International Law, a recipient of the American Jurisprudence award, a Phi Delta Phi honor society member, and a student practitioner in the appellate litigation clinic where she argued before the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals. She holds a B.S. in Journalism with honors from Liberty University.
Her commentary and analysis have appeared in media outlets across the country, including the AP, BBC, Fox News, NPR, The Hill, Washington Post, Washington Times, and the New York Times. She is the mother of three children, and the author of just as many books on the trials and triumphs of parenting children on the autism spectrum. Sarah is a member of the Kirkpatrick Society at the American Enterprise Institute, and makes her home north of Baltimore, Maryland.
Former Acting Assistant Secretary and Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary, U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights
Kimberly M. Richey served as acting assistant secretary and principal deputy assistant secretary in the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) at the U.S Department of Education (DOE). Earlier, Richey served as the acting assistant secretary and deputy assistant secretary in the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services at the DOE. Richey was the managing director of federal advocacy and public policy at the National School Boards Association, and earlier she represented the Oklahoma State Department of Education, the State Board of Education, and the state superintendent of public instruction as their general counsel.
Richey was general counsel and associate director of the Oklahoma Council on Law Enforcement Education and Training, a postsecondary education agency focused on peace officer training, and also served the DOE as counselor to the assistant secretary in the Office for Civil Rights. During that time, Richey was also acting chief of staff in the Office of Legislation and Congressional Affairs.
Richey is a certified teacher and is licensed to practice law in Oklahoma, Texas, and the District of Columbia. She holds a J.D. from the University of Oklahoma and a bachelor’s degree in education from Southern Nazarene University. Richey is a native of Corpus Christi, Texas.
Professor of Law, American University; Washington College of Law
Robert Dinerstein is professor of law and director of the Disability Rights Law Clinic at American University Washington College of Law (AUWCL), where he has taught since 1983. His previous positions include serving as the law school's acting dean (2020-2021), associate dean for academic affairs from (1997-2004), associate dean for experiential education (2012-2018), and director of the clinical program (1988-96 and 2008-2018). He specializes in the fields of clinical education and disability law, especially mental disabilities law (including issues of consent/choice, capacity and supported decision-making and other alternatives to guardianship), the Americans with Disabilities Act, the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, legal representation of clients with mental disabilities, and disability and international human rights.
Dinerstein has made numerous presentations on clinical legal education and disability law, among other topics, and has published a number of books, articles, chapters and other writing on these subjects.
He is the author/editor of two books. He is co-editor and co-author, with the late Stanley Herr and Joan O’Sullivan, of A Guide to Consent (AAMR, 1999). He is co-author, with the late Stephen Ellmann, Isabelle Gunning, Kate Kruse and Ann Shalleck, of Lawyers and Clients: Critical Issues in Interviewing and Counseling (Thomson West 2009) and the accompanying Teacher’s Manual.
Among Dinerstein’s recent publications in the disability law area, he is the author of:
In the area of legal education and lawyering, his recent articles include “New Wine and New Bottles (on experiential legal education),” 44 Syllabus 2 (Winter 2012-13), Publication of ABA Section on Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar; as co-author (with Margaret Barry, Phyllis Goldfarb, Peggy Maisel and Linda Morton) “Exploring the Meaning of Experiential Deaning,” 67(3) Journal of Legal Education 660 (2018); and ‘The Clinical Law Review at 25: What Hath We Wrought?, 26(1) Clinical Law Review 147 (2019) (25th Anniversary Symposium Issue). He has written extensively on issues of clinical pedagogy and lawyering, in particular, client-centered counseling [especially in his article, “Client-Centered Counseling: Reappraisal and Refinement,” 32 Arizona L. Rev. 501 (1990).] He has also written and presented on the US Department of Justice’s record of enforcement of the rights of persons with disabilities under several administrations.
Dinerstein was appointed by President Clinton in 1994 to serve on the President's Committee on Mental Retardation (now called the President’s Committee on People with Intellectual Disabilities), on which he served until 2001. From 2018-2021, he was a commissioner on the ABA Commission on Disability Rights, and from 2021-present serves as the ABA Section on Civil Rights and Social Justice’s liaison to the Commission. Internationally, he has consulted for the World Health Organization (Ghana and Malawi) and the Open Society Foundations (Ghana and Zambia) regarding the revision of mental health laws and was a signatory to the Montreal Declaration on Intellectual Disabilities, adopted in Montreal, Canada in October 2004. He also has consulted with the Open Society Foundations regarding disability rights clinics and disability rights curricula in Latin America and Southern Africa. Domestically, he has consulted for the Ford Foundation, Public Welfare Foundation and the US Department of Health and Human Services and the US Department of Education on issues related to legal services, disability law and poverty law. He is the principal investigator for the Disability and Human Rights Fellows program, which receives support from the Open Society Foundations.
Prior to joining AUWCL, Dinerstein worked as an attorney in the U.S. Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division, Special Litigation Section, where he handled federal court cases on the rights of people in institutions for people with psychosocial disabilities, people with intellectual disabilities and juveniles. In addition to the Disability Rights Law Clinic, which he founded (and which handles special education, supported decision making, advance mental health directives, Titles I-III of the ADA, and other cases), he teaches a seminar on law and disability and has taught interviewing and counseling, legal ethics, the supervised externship seminar, and the criminal justice clinic (which he directed from 1989-1996).
Dinerstein is actively involved in organizations related to legal education nationally. He was a member (elected) of the Council of the American Bar Association Section on Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar (2006-2011), and previously was on the section’s Standards Review Committee, where he was vice chair. He has been a member of 17 ABA-AALS joint site inspection teams, chairing four teams. Within the Association of American Law Schools, he was a member of the membership review committee and has, among other things, chaired the sections on clinical legal education, law and community, disability law and law and mental disability law, as well as the committees on clinical legal education, sections and the annual meeting, and the planning committee for the 2006 clinical teachers’ conference. He has been a member of a number of other planning committees, including for the AALS New Teachers’ Conference.
Dinerstein currently sits on the boards of directors of the Equal Rights Center (president), and the New Hope Community, Inc. and Foundation, and in the past has served on the boards of the Quality Trust for Individuals with Disabilities, Inc. (founding board member & president, 2001-2016), Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless, Inc. (founding board member and long-term treasurer, 1986-2015), Advocates for Justice and Education (treasurer), the District of Columbia Bar Board of Governors (elected; 2002-05), Society of American Law Teachers (elected), Mental Disability Rights International (founding board member; now called Disability Rights International), Legal Counsel for the Elderly, and the Maryland Disability Law Center; and the steering committee for the Jacobus tenBroek annual disability law symposium sponsored by the National Federation of the Blind (founding member, and member until 2019).
Among his many awards and honors, Dinerstein has received the WCL Outstanding Service Award (2017-18); been named a Fellow of the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (2016) and received the Paul G. Hearne Award for Disability Rights (ABA, 2013); (with Ann Shalleck) the Egon Guttman Casebook Award (2011-12) for Lawyers and Clients; the William Pincus Award for his contributions to clinical legal education (2010); American University Awards for Scholar-Teacher of the Year (2013), Outstanding Teaching in a Full-Time Appointment (2009) and Faculty-Administrator Award for Outstanding Service to the University Community (2002); and the Pro Bono Service Award from the International Human Rights Law Group (1988).
He has an A.B. degree from Cornell University and a J.D. degree from Yale Law School. He is listed in Who's Who in America).
Founder, Chairman, and CEO, Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law
Hon. Kenneth L. Marcus is an internationally recognized expert in civil and human rights, as well as a leader in the fight against anti-Semitism on and off university campuses. He is the Founder, Chairman, and CEO of The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, the leading civil rights legal organization fighting against anti-Semitism. The New York Times has called him “The Man Who Helped Redefine Campus Anti-Semitism.” He been described, in that paper, as “the single most effective and respected force” to combat anti-Semitism.
During his public service career, Marcus served as Assistant U.S. Secretary of Education for Civil Rights; Staff Director at the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights; and General Deputy Assistant U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity.
In academia, he serves as Professorial Lecturer in Law at George Washington University. He formerly held the Lillie and Nathan Ackerman Chair in Equality and Justice in America at the City University of New York’s Bernard M. Baruch College, served as Visiting Research Professor of Political Science at Yeshiva University, and was a Board of Visitors member George Mason University and Distinguished Senior Fellow at that university’s law school. He is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Contemporary Antisemitism and previously served as Associate Editor of the Journal for the Study of Anti-Semitism.
Marcus is also author of The Definition of Anti-Semitism (Oxford University Press) and Jewish Identity and Civil Rights in America (Cambridge University Press). He has published widely in academic journals as well as in more popular venues such as The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Newsweek, USA Today, and Politico. He is a graduate of Williams College and the University of California at Berkeley School of Law.
Earlier in his career, he was a litigation partner in two major law firms, where he conducted complex commercial and constitutional litigation. He also serves as Chairman emeritus of the Executive Committee of the Federalist Society for Law & Public Policy Civil Rights Practice Group.
Vice President & Senior Legal Fellow, Defending Education
Sarah Parshall Perry is vice president and senior legal fellow at Defending Education.
Before coming to Defending Education, Sarah served as a Senior Legal Fellow for the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, part of the Institute for Constitutional Government at Heritage, where her work centered on civil rights and the proper role of the courts.
Sarah joined Heritage after serving as Senior Counsel to the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Education where she focused on policy reform, technical guidance, and the Office for Civil Rights’ (OCR) annual report to Congress. While at OCR, she was appointed by the Acting Assistant Secretary to co-chair the Employment Engagement, Diversity, & Inclusion Council and, in coordination with the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Enforcement oversee the hiring of dozens of attorneys for OCR’s 12 regional offices nationwide. Prior to her tenure at the Department of Education, she spent six years at the Family Research Council in Washington, D.C. where she was Senior Fellow for Education Reform and later, became the regular substitute host for the “Washington Watch” radio show. Her work at the Family Research Council also included the building and oversight of multiple policy coalitions geared toward the fight against antisemitism in academia, curbing tech censorship, and protecting religious liberty.
Before joining FRC, Sarah was in-house counsel and director of development for a Baltimore advertising agency, providing management of all new business transactions from pitch to contract execution for the multi-million-dollar enterprise. She began her practice at the litigation firm of Simms Showers, LLP where her work included Title VII employment discrimination, maritime/admiralty, and False Claims Act (“Qui Tam”) law. Sarah has a law degree from the University of Virginia School of Law, where she was an editor of the Virginia Journal of International Law, a recipient of the American Jurisprudence award, a Phi Delta Phi honor society member, and a student practitioner in the appellate litigation clinic where she argued before the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals. She holds a B.S. in Journalism with honors from Liberty University.
Her commentary and analysis have appeared in media outlets across the country, including the AP, BBC, Fox News, NPR, The Hill, Washington Post, Washington Times, and the New York Times. She is the mother of three children, and the author of just as many books on the trials and triumphs of parenting children on the autism spectrum. Sarah is a member of the Kirkpatrick Society at the American Enterprise Institute, and makes her home north of Baltimore, Maryland.
Professor of Law, American University; Washington College of Law
Robert Dinerstein is professor of law and director of the Disability Rights Law Clinic at American University Washington College of Law (AUWCL), where he has taught since 1983. His previous positions include serving as the law school's acting dean (2020-2021), associate dean for academic affairs from (1997-2004), associate dean for experiential education (2012-2018), and director of the clinical program (1988-96 and 2008-2018). He specializes in the fields of clinical education and disability law, especially mental disabilities law (including issues of consent/choice, capacity and supported decision-making and other alternatives to guardianship), the Americans with Disabilities Act, the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, legal representation of clients with mental disabilities, and disability and international human rights.
Dinerstein has made numerous presentations on clinical legal education and disability law, among other topics, and has published a number of books, articles, chapters and other writing on these subjects.
He is the author/editor of two books. He is co-editor and co-author, with the late Stanley Herr and Joan O’Sullivan, of A Guide to Consent (AAMR, 1999). He is co-author, with the late Stephen Ellmann, Isabelle Gunning, Kate Kruse and Ann Shalleck, of Lawyers and Clients: Critical Issues in Interviewing and Counseling (Thomson West 2009) and the accompanying Teacher’s Manual.
Among Dinerstein’s recent publications in the disability law area, he is the author of:
In the area of legal education and lawyering, his recent articles include “New Wine and New Bottles (on experiential legal education),” 44 Syllabus 2 (Winter 2012-13), Publication of ABA Section on Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar; as co-author (with Margaret Barry, Phyllis Goldfarb, Peggy Maisel and Linda Morton) “Exploring the Meaning of Experiential Deaning,” 67(3) Journal of Legal Education 660 (2018); and ‘The Clinical Law Review at 25: What Hath We Wrought?, 26(1) Clinical Law Review 147 (2019) (25th Anniversary Symposium Issue). He has written extensively on issues of clinical pedagogy and lawyering, in particular, client-centered counseling [especially in his article, “Client-Centered Counseling: Reappraisal and Refinement,” 32 Arizona L. Rev. 501 (1990).] He has also written and presented on the US Department of Justice’s record of enforcement of the rights of persons with disabilities under several administrations.
Dinerstein was appointed by President Clinton in 1994 to serve on the President's Committee on Mental Retardation (now called the President’s Committee on People with Intellectual Disabilities), on which he served until 2001. From 2018-2021, he was a commissioner on the ABA Commission on Disability Rights, and from 2021-present serves as the ABA Section on Civil Rights and Social Justice’s liaison to the Commission. Internationally, he has consulted for the World Health Organization (Ghana and Malawi) and the Open Society Foundations (Ghana and Zambia) regarding the revision of mental health laws and was a signatory to the Montreal Declaration on Intellectual Disabilities, adopted in Montreal, Canada in October 2004. He also has consulted with the Open Society Foundations regarding disability rights clinics and disability rights curricula in Latin America and Southern Africa. Domestically, he has consulted for the Ford Foundation, Public Welfare Foundation and the US Department of Health and Human Services and the US Department of Education on issues related to legal services, disability law and poverty law. He is the principal investigator for the Disability and Human Rights Fellows program, which receives support from the Open Society Foundations.
Prior to joining AUWCL, Dinerstein worked as an attorney in the U.S. Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division, Special Litigation Section, where he handled federal court cases on the rights of people in institutions for people with psychosocial disabilities, people with intellectual disabilities and juveniles. In addition to the Disability Rights Law Clinic, which he founded (and which handles special education, supported decision making, advance mental health directives, Titles I-III of the ADA, and other cases), he teaches a seminar on law and disability and has taught interviewing and counseling, legal ethics, the supervised externship seminar, and the criminal justice clinic (which he directed from 1989-1996).
Dinerstein is actively involved in organizations related to legal education nationally. He was a member (elected) of the Council of the American Bar Association Section on Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar (2006-2011), and previously was on the section’s Standards Review Committee, where he was vice chair. He has been a member of 17 ABA-AALS joint site inspection teams, chairing four teams. Within the Association of American Law Schools, he was a member of the membership review committee and has, among other things, chaired the sections on clinical legal education, law and community, disability law and law and mental disability law, as well as the committees on clinical legal education, sections and the annual meeting, and the planning committee for the 2006 clinical teachers’ conference. He has been a member of a number of other planning committees, including for the AALS New Teachers’ Conference.
Dinerstein currently sits on the boards of directors of the Equal Rights Center (president), and the New Hope Community, Inc. and Foundation, and in the past has served on the boards of the Quality Trust for Individuals with Disabilities, Inc. (founding board member & president, 2001-2016), Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless, Inc. (founding board member and long-term treasurer, 1986-2015), Advocates for Justice and Education (treasurer), the District of Columbia Bar Board of Governors (elected; 2002-05), Society of American Law Teachers (elected), Mental Disability Rights International (founding board member; now called Disability Rights International), Legal Counsel for the Elderly, and the Maryland Disability Law Center; and the steering committee for the Jacobus tenBroek annual disability law symposium sponsored by the National Federation of the Blind (founding member, and member until 2019).
Among his many awards and honors, Dinerstein has received the WCL Outstanding Service Award (2017-18); been named a Fellow of the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (2016) and received the Paul G. Hearne Award for Disability Rights (ABA, 2013); (with Ann Shalleck) the Egon Guttman Casebook Award (2011-12) for Lawyers and Clients; the William Pincus Award for his contributions to clinical legal education (2010); American University Awards for Scholar-Teacher of the Year (2013), Outstanding Teaching in a Full-Time Appointment (2009) and Faculty-Administrator Award for Outstanding Service to the University Community (2002); and the Pro Bono Service Award from the International Human Rights Law Group (1988).
He has an A.B. degree from Cornell University and a J.D. degree from Yale Law School. He is listed in Who's Who in America).
Founder, Chairman, and CEO, Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law
Hon. Kenneth L. Marcus is an internationally recognized expert in civil and human rights, as well as a leader in the fight against anti-Semitism on and off university campuses. He is the Founder, Chairman, and CEO of The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, the leading civil rights legal organization fighting against anti-Semitism. The New York Times has called him “The Man Who Helped Redefine Campus Anti-Semitism.” He been described, in that paper, as “the single most effective and respected force” to combat anti-Semitism.
During his public service career, Marcus served as Assistant U.S. Secretary of Education for Civil Rights; Staff Director at the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights; and General Deputy Assistant U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity.
In academia, he serves as Professorial Lecturer in Law at George Washington University. He formerly held the Lillie and Nathan Ackerman Chair in Equality and Justice in America at the City University of New York’s Bernard M. Baruch College, served as Visiting Research Professor of Political Science at Yeshiva University, and was a Board of Visitors member George Mason University and Distinguished Senior Fellow at that university’s law school. He is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Contemporary Antisemitism and previously served as Associate Editor of the Journal for the Study of Anti-Semitism.
Marcus is also author of The Definition of Anti-Semitism (Oxford University Press) and Jewish Identity and Civil Rights in America (Cambridge University Press). He has published widely in academic journals as well as in more popular venues such as The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Newsweek, USA Today, and Politico. He is a graduate of Williams College and the University of California at Berkeley School of Law.
Earlier in his career, he was a litigation partner in two major law firms, where he conducted complex commercial and constitutional litigation. He also serves as Chairman emeritus of the Executive Committee of the Federalist Society for Law & Public Policy Civil Rights Practice Group.
Vice President & Senior Legal Fellow, Defending Education
Sarah Parshall Perry is vice president and senior legal fellow at Defending Education.
Before coming to Defending Education, Sarah served as a Senior Legal Fellow for the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, part of the Institute for Constitutional Government at Heritage, where her work centered on civil rights and the proper role of the courts.
Sarah joined Heritage after serving as Senior Counsel to the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Education where she focused on policy reform, technical guidance, and the Office for Civil Rights’ (OCR) annual report to Congress. While at OCR, she was appointed by the Acting Assistant Secretary to co-chair the Employment Engagement, Diversity, & Inclusion Council and, in coordination with the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Enforcement oversee the hiring of dozens of attorneys for OCR’s 12 regional offices nationwide. Prior to her tenure at the Department of Education, she spent six years at the Family Research Council in Washington, D.C. where she was Senior Fellow for Education Reform and later, became the regular substitute host for the “Washington Watch” radio show. Her work at the Family Research Council also included the building and oversight of multiple policy coalitions geared toward the fight against antisemitism in academia, curbing tech censorship, and protecting religious liberty.
Before joining FRC, Sarah was in-house counsel and director of development for a Baltimore advertising agency, providing management of all new business transactions from pitch to contract execution for the multi-million-dollar enterprise. She began her practice at the litigation firm of Simms Showers, LLP where her work included Title VII employment discrimination, maritime/admiralty, and False Claims Act (“Qui Tam”) law. Sarah has a law degree from the University of Virginia School of Law, where she was an editor of the Virginia Journal of International Law, a recipient of the American Jurisprudence award, a Phi Delta Phi honor society member, and a student practitioner in the appellate litigation clinic where she argued before the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals. She holds a B.S. in Journalism with honors from Liberty University.
Her commentary and analysis have appeared in media outlets across the country, including the AP, BBC, Fox News, NPR, The Hill, Washington Post, Washington Times, and the New York Times. She is the mother of three children, and the author of just as many books on the trials and triumphs of parenting children on the autism spectrum. Sarah is a member of the Kirkpatrick Society at the American Enterprise Institute, and makes her home north of Baltimore, Maryland.
504 Regulations Under the Current Administration
Robert Dinerstein, Sarah Parshall Perry, Kimberly M. Richey
Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 protects qualified "individuals with disabilities" from discrimination...
504 Regulations Under the Current Administration
Robert Dinerstein, Sarah Parshall Perry, Kimberly M. Richey
Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 protects qualified "individuals with disabilities" from discrimination...
Discussion: The OCR's Investigation of State Mask Mandate Bans
Robert Dinerstein, Kenneth L. Marcus, Sarah Parshall Perry
Civil Rights Practice Group Teleforum
The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights has launched an investigation into the...
Discussion: The OCR's Investigation of State Mask Mandate Bans
Robert Dinerstein, Kenneth L. Marcus, Sarah Parshall Perry
Civil Rights Practice Group Teleforum
The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights has launched an investigation into the...