As a Senior Legal Worker at the Center for Constitutional Rights, Leah Todd supports CCR’s legal and advocacy work, with a particular focus on international human rights, First Amendment principles, and anti-militarism, and manages CCR’s term-time internship and volunteer programs. She has worked on cases and projects including Al Shimari v. CACI challenging torture by military contractors; the Right to Heal Initiative seeking accountability and reparations for the war in Iraq; advocacy in support of Palestine solidarity activists and related cases Awad v. Fordham University, Davis v. Cox, and Salaita v. Kennedy; Gulino v. Board of Education of the City of New York, challenging discrimination against Black and Latinx New York City teachers; and international advocacy to halt deportations from the U.S. to Haiti following the 2010 earthquake and to promote Palestinian human rights.

Leah previously worked at the Rubin Museum of Art and the Law Office of Rankin & Taylor. Both within and outside her work at CCR, Leah believes in imagining creative strategies to counter violence – from large-scale militarism to interpersonal conflict – from a transformative justice framework that challenges the violence and the structural conditions that allow the violence to occur. She works towards creating safer spaces and building cultures of accountability as a member of Support New York, a collective that provides community-based responses to sexual assault and intimate partner violence, and through other projects. She also advocates for safer streets through the art and advocacy initiative NYC Street Memorial Project and has facilitated Know Your Rights trainings for community groups. Leah graduated from Columbia University with a focus in English and Comparative Literature, Gender Studies, and Creative Writing.