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Monique Dixon, a veteran civil rights attorney and former Biden administration official, was named the inaugural executive director of the Gibson-Banks Center for Race and the Law at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law.
Monique Dixon, new executive director of the Gibson-Banks Center for Race and the Law at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law. (Photo courtesy of UMD Carey Law)
Dixon, a 1996 graduate of Maryland Carey Law, comes to the role with an impressive record as a civil rights leader in Baltimore, the state and on the national stage. She most recently served as deputy assistant secretary for policy in the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights.
Launched in fall 2023, the Gibson-Banks Center is a space for education and engagement, advocacy, and research as well as a resource for students, lawyers and community members who are working to advance racial justice.
The center is named after Larry Gibson and Taunya Lovell Banks, the first Black man and Black woman to become tenured full professors at the law school.
Dixon’s career has centered on addressing systemic inequalities. Before serving in the Biden administration, she was deputy director of policy and director of state advocacy at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund Inc. where she implemented federal policy and legislative reform priorities with a focus on criminal justice and education. She was also the lead architect of LDF’s state and local legislative and policy activities, including the Justice in Public Safety Project.
Previously, Dixon was director of the Criminal and Juvenile Justice Program of Open Society Institute (OSI)-Baltimore and senior staff attorney at Advancement Project in Washington. After law school, she clerked for Judge Mabel Hubbard of the Circuit Court for the City of Baltimore.
She is a 2017 recipient of the Maryland Daily Record Leadership in Law Award, a 2011 recipient of the Maryland Carey Law Benjamin L. Cardin Public Service Award and a 2009 recipient of the Racial Justice Award from the Young Women’s Christian Association.