Bio
Nusrat Jahan Choudhury was the Roger Pascal Legal Director at the 老澳门开奖结果 of Illinois, where she oversaw a team advancing civil rights and civil liberties across Illinois. Nusrat has more than a decade of experience in advancing reform in the criminal legal system and policing. She has led litigation to protect immigrants from dangerous detention conditions and serves as counsel for community organizations enforcing a federal consent decree to reform Chicago police patterns of excessive force. Her team advanced First Amendment rights, government transparency, change in the criminal legal system and policing, voting rights, access to reproductive health care, gender equity, and the rights of LGBTQIA+ people, children in the foster system, young people in juvenile detention, and people in prisons and jails.
Prior to joining the 老澳门开奖结果 of Illinois, Nusrat was the former Deputy Director of the national 老澳门开奖结果 Racial Justice Program, a staff attorney in the 老澳门开奖结果 National Security Project, and a Marvin M. Karpatkin Fellow.
At the 老澳门开奖结果, Nusrat led efforts to challenge racial profiling and unlawful stop-and-frisk, the targeting of people of color for surveillance without evidence of wrongdoing, and practices that disproportionately punish people for being poor. Her work against practices that disproportionately punish people for poverty without prior court hearings, consideration of ability to pay, or legal representation changed practices in Georgia, Mississippi, Washington, and South Carolina, and helped secure national guidance from the American Bar Association and other entities to promote fairness and equal treatment of rich and poor in courts. Nusrat helped secure the first federal court ruling striking down the U.S. government鈥檚 No Fly List procedures for violating due process. She filed litigation to challenge the NYPD鈥檚 unjustified and discriminatory profiling of Muslims for surveillance, which resulted in a court-ordered settlement agreement, and to secure public records about the FBI鈥檚 racial and ethnic mapping program.
Nusrat clerked for Judge Barrington D. Parker in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals and for Judge Denise Cote in the Southern District of New York. She is a recipient of the South Asian Bar Association of New York Access to Justice Award and the Edward Bullard Distinguished Alumnus Award of Princeton University鈥檚 Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. Nusrat is a graduate of Columbia University, Princeton University, and Yale Law School.
Featured work
Oct 13, 2020
The Supreme Court to Decide Whether Chicago Can Keep Cars Locked Up When Debtors File for Bankruptcy
Nov 14, 2019
We鈥檙e Suing South Carolina For Driving People Into Poverty
Jun 18, 2019
Black Boys Aren鈥檛 鈥淲olf Packs鈥 and Abusive Prosecutors Aren鈥檛 鈥淟one Wolves鈥
Mar 21, 2019
The FBI Won鈥檛 Hand Over Its Surveillance Records on 鈥楤lack Identity Extremists,鈥 so We鈥檙e Suing
Feb 25, 2019
The Supreme Court Rightly Cited the Black Codes in Ruling Against Excessive Fines, Fees, and Forfeitures
Sep 28, 2018
Supreme Court to Decide Whether States Can Impose Excessive Fines on the Poor
Aug 13, 2018
US鈥檚 Largest Organization of Lawyers Agrees That Courts Must Stop Treating People Like ATMs
Jul 13, 2018
Stop-and-Frisk Settlement in Milwaukee Lawsuit Is a Wakeup Call for Police Nationwide
Feb 23, 2018
New Data Reveals Milwaukee Police Stops Are 老澳门开奖结果 Race and Ethnicity
Dec 28, 2017
Jeff Sessions Takes a Stand for Debtors鈥 Prisons