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Tanya Greene ’91, Human Rights Watch 

After a 25-year career defending clients accused of crimes punishable by death, Greene pivoted a couple years back to Human Rights Watch (HRW), where she is the director of the U.S. program. There, she monitors domestic rights violations at an organization more broadly known for keeping tabs on repression and violence globally.  

“We center racial justice as the fundamental human rights violation that occurs in the United States from which all other human rights violations either spring or are attendant to or complement,” Greene said. It is, she says, a relief to focus overtly on that work after decades “trying to shoehorn racial justice issues into my litigation.”  

She oversees a corps of researchers who investigate and document violations. The collected data is then used to bolster rights litigation—or as a resource for grassroots activists pushing for change, helping ensure they know their existing rights in an era with increasing evidence of premature capitulation to authoritarianism. 

“My staff consists primarily of people of color, non-male genders, and people who come from communities who have been impacted by these violations, so there is a lot of personal experience there too.” 

That includes Greene herself. “I was an affirmative action baby,” she said. “I was a poor, Black kid from an uneducated working-class family, so Wesleyan made all the difference in my life.… It gave me a voice where I don’t think I would have had one.”  

That lived experience drives Greene’s work; less than two years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court rolled back affirmative action in higher education, leading businesses and institutions nationwide to dismantle diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. That, combined with the increase in state oversight of reproductive decisions after federal abortion protections were overturned, as well as a recent ruling increasing presidential immunity, is creating potential for an authoritarian government. That is, Greene’s work is increasingly undifferentiated from that of HRW scrutiny of other nations. 

“I have colleagues who deal with repressive states, and we’re talking,” she noted drily. “We need to have governments that respect human rights across the board regardless of the party.” 

HRW teaches “how to have a protest without having a protest, how to organize where organizing is forbidden,” Greene said. “In the United States, the criminalization of protest is going to become more and more of an issue.”  

One of Greene’s main concerns, then, is helping make sure people in the United States know, and use, the rights and protections they have to speak out against injustice rather than self-censoring prematurely. Greene encourages people to then share that knowledge as the voice of critical thinking, be it on social media or in heterogeneous family gatherings.   

“There are things that fly past you that you can respond to, you can comment on, you can choose to not forward,” she said.

Jenny Ma ’01, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (Biden administration) 

Jenny Ma has been at this long enough to know that advocacy is largely about keeping an eye on long-term mission goals while rolling with the short-term ups and downs. 

“It’s very emotionally challenging,” she says. “It’s really hard to be an attorney in any justice space where you’re fighting for what you believe is right and you know the effect it has on real people.” Her experiences have made her adamant that advocacy is a long road full of dips and swerves, but that it’s crucial to stay on the path. 

Most recently, during the Biden administration, Ma served as the second-in-command at the Office for Civil Rights in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, where she managed the execution of policies and enforcement of federal civil rights and privacy laws.  

She used the time to lead the department in passing a record number of regulations strengthening the statutes the office is charged with enforcing.  

“I would hope that across every administration those values and principles would stay,” she said. “They are the cornerstone of decades of civil rights laws and protections that the American people have enjoyed.” Undoing the strengthened regulations Ma and her team carefully crafted would require a notice and public comment period before any changes enter into force. That is: Existing laws and policies are dependent upon the public paying attention and weighing in­—not on any individual’s whim.   

Ma is currently teaching sexuality and gender law at Columbia University and expressed excitement about the opportunity to mentor an upcoming generation of lawyers who will continue to defend protections. She sees teaching young and aspiring attorneys analytic skills—to look at issues from every conceivable perspective—to be a key part of this work. “Wh¾ÅÉ«ÊÓƵ really imparted was to turn the wheel of a question,” she said. “I always tell junior attorneys you should be able to argue the other side. That’s when you really know your argument’s strengths and weaknesses.” 

Khadine Bennett ’99, ACLU of Illinois 

As the advocacy director at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Illinois, attorney Khadine Bennett is constantly gaming out all the potential ways to protect and strengthen state-level rights, a hedge against federal protections being watered down or eliminated. To do this work, she says, it’s necessary to consider all the potential threats to people’s rights—and be ready to meet them.  

“As things happen, we’re prepared as much as we can be [while] not being concerned with the policy version of doom-scrolling,” she said. That is, not every threatened rollback or restriction comes to pass, but it makes sense to shore up resources just in case. “We’ve been thinking about this work in terms of increasing privacy protections for health data [and] accountability mechanisms for police,” she said.  

Her team collaborates with state lawmakers seeking to pass rights protections into Illinois law. That way, “we’re able to be a state where people are coming to access reproductive health care and also gender-affirming care,” she said.  

For example, her team helped push for HB 4664, signed into law in 2023, protecting doctors providing “lawful health care” in Illinois from being penalized by states with more restrictive rules. The ACLU of Illinois is also advocating for bills that would protect user data on health apps and restrict location information sharing to protect people traveling between states for health care.   

“We have to do everything we can to make sure that as a state we’re living our values,” she said. “I wouldn’t say that I’m not worried, but I’m on the right team with the right tools.”