Scholars paused over the weekend to remember Lani Guinier, one of the nation’s foremost legal scholars on race and civil rights.
Guiner died on Friday at the age of 71.
A fierce proponent of affirmative action and diversity, Guiner was a trailblazing educator, scholar, civil rights lawyer whose research focused on voting rights.
“Lani Guiner’s career as a civil rights lawyer and the example she set as an advocate was instrumental to inspiring countless attorneys, including myself, to continue building on the path she trailblazed,” said Sherrilyn Ifill, the President and Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. “She was not only an indefatigable leader in the hard-fought quest to perfect our democracy, but also a teacher of many who have gone on to do that work. I am privileged to count myself in that number and will always remember Professor Guiner as an icon and a great American.” 
Lani Guiner
Ifill credits Guiner with training her as a voting rights lawyer and setting the “example for me of our obligation to respect and elevate the voices of our clients in our work. She set the standard as an intellectual, a scholar, and a civil rights advocate.”
A former LDF litigator, Guiner was born in New York City on April 19, 1950, to activist parents—Eugenia Paprin and Ewart Guiner.
Guiner earned her bachelor’s degree from Radcliff College and her J.D. from Yale Law School. She later interned at LDF under the leadership of Elaine Jones, who was the organization’s first female Director-Counsel.
