Leah Todd

Senior Legal Worker

Leah Todd (she/they) is a Senior Legal Worker at the Center for Constitutional Rights, where she works on issues related to gender and LGBTQIA+ justice; prisons and detention; freedom of speech, expression, and association and countering suppression of dissent; international human rights; and anti-militarism. Leah also manages the Center for Constitutional Rights' term-time legal internships and year-round program internships, and co-hosts the Center for Constitutional Rights podcast, The Activist Files. She has worked on cases and projects protecting the rights of queer and trans people to access safe housing and employment without discrimination and challenging abuses in prison (notably Diamond v. Ward and Lopez v. NYC Department of Homeless Services); seeking accountability and reparations for U.S. militarism and challenging torture; supporting and defending advocacy for Palestinian rights (including JNF v. US Campaign for Palestinian RightsSilber v. AirbnbAwad v. Fordham UniversityDavis v. CoxBronner v. Duggan, and Salaita v. Kennedy); advocating for people convicted by racially discriminatory non-unanimous juries; challenging violations of public access to the legislative processchallenging discrimination against Black and Latinx New York City teachers; and working to halt U.S. deportations of Haitians following the 2010 earthquake.

Leah previously worked at the Rubin Museum of Art and the Law Office of Rankin & Taylor. Both within and outside her work at the Center for Constitutional Rights, 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 has worked towards building cultures of accountability and safety as a member of Support New York, a collective that provided community-based responses to sexual assault and intimate partner violence, with the Safer Spaces Working Group at Occupy Wall Street, and through other community projects. She is also a member of 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.