News & Commentary written by ReNika Moore

ReNika Moore is the Director of the ACLU’s Racial Justice Program (RJP). She leads a dedicated team that uses litigation, advocacy, grassroots mobilization, and public education to dismantle barriers to equality for people of color. RJP takes on issues in a range of areas including education, housing, the economy, and the criminal justice system. Prior to joining the ACLU, ReNika served as Labor Bureau Chief of the New York Office of the Attorney General. During her tenure, the Labor Bureau was nationally recognized for aggressively enforcing labor standards on behalf of low-wage workers who were disproportionately people of color and immigrants. ReNika led the bureau’s enforcement in emerging areas, such as the misuse of anticompetitive labor agreements and, after the 2016 presidential election, worked to lead multi-state efforts to fight federal rollbacks of critical labor protections. ReNika also oversaw the bureau’s appellate representation of New York State’s Department of Labor and Workers Compensation Board.

Before joining the NYAG, ReNika supervised and coordinated the NAACP Legal Defense Fund’s economic justice litigation, public education, and public policy efforts. ReNika litigated high-impact racial justice cases tackling a variety of civil rights issues, including criminal background checks in employment, discrimination in major federal housing programs, and environmental racism. She served as a faculty member in the Shriver Center’s inaugural Racial Justice Training Institute for legal aid and legal services attorneys from around the country. ReNika also worked with the employment law firm Outten & Golden LLP representing workers who had been unlawfully discriminated against or had been unlawfully denied their earned wages. ReNika began her career clerking for accomplished civil rights litigator, the late Honorable Robert L. Carter in the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of New York. ReNika received her J.D. from Harvard Law School and A.B. from Harvard College cum laude.