Civil Rights Center Staff

Julius L. Chambers: Director Julius L. Chambers is a graduate of North Carolina Central University, University of Michigan and Columbia University School of Law. He received his law degree from UNC-Chapel Hill with high honors, where he was editor-in-chief of the North Carolina Law Review. Chambers is the nation's most renowned school desegregation attorney. For 15 years, he worked with community groups in Charlotte to chart the course of Swann v. Charlotte/Mecklenburg Board of Education, a case that eventually made Charlotte a national leader in school desegregation. At the same time, he and his law firm served as lead counsel in scores of school desegregation cases brought by African American communities throughout North and South Carolina. Upon becoming director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc. in 1984, Chambers worked closely with virtually every major civil rights leader and organization in the nation, as well as with the nation's leading policymakers and scholars of public education. As chancellor of North Carolina Central University from 1991-2000, Chambers deepened his ties to the region's political and business leaders and to its local communities.

Charles E. Daye: Deputy Director Charles E. Daye is a graduate of North Carolina Central University. He received his law degree from Columbia University School of Law. Daye is a full-time faculty member at the UNC School of Law. He began his career as an associate with the firm of Dewey, Ballantine, Bushby, Palmer & Wood in New York City. He served as a law clerk to the Honorable Harry Phillips, chief judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, becoming the first African American to serve as a law clerk in that circuit. After the clerkship, Daye practiced as an associate with Covington & Burling in Washington, D.C. He joined the law faculty at UNC-Chapel Hill in 1972 where he was the first African American to hold a tenure-track position on the law faculty. In 1981 Daye was named dean of North Carolina Central University School of Law, where he served until 1985. He teaches torts, housing and community development, and administrative process and advocacy. He is the senior editor of a course book, Housing and Community Development (with Professors Mandelker, Hetzel, Kushner, McGee, Washburn, Salsich, and Keating).

S. Ashley Osment: Senior Attorney S. Ashley Osment is a graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill. She received her law degree from UNC-Chapel Hill in 1995. From 1987-1990, Osment was assistant legislative director for the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) in Washington, D.C., where she coordinated grassroots lobbying throughout the United States and wrote position papers on a number of issues for the organization's membership. After graduating from law school, Osment litigated civil rights cases with the Chapel Hill law firm McSurely & Osment, focusing on employment, housing discrimination, education and police misconduct. In January 2005, Osment joined the Center as a senior attorney focusing on education.

Mark Dorosin: Senior Attorney Mark Dorosin is a graduate of Duke University. He received a Master's Degree from UNC-Greensboro and a law degree from UNC-Chapel Hill in 1994. Prior to joining the Center for Civil Rights, Dorosin worked for the Duke University School of Law as the Supervising Attorney in the Community Enterprise Clinic. As supervising attorney, he worked with law students to provide direct legal representation to community organizations working to promote economic development in under resourced and predominantly minority communities. Before joining the clinical program at Duke, Mark worked as an attorney and loan servicing officer at Self-Help, a leading North Carolina community development corporation. He was an Assistant Clinical Professor of Law and the Interim Director of the UNC Law School Community Development Law Clinic during the 2003-04 academic year. From 1994-1997, he was a partner at Chapel Hill law firm concentrating on civil rights, constitutional law, and employment discrimination. In 2008, Dorosin joined the Center for Civil Rights as a Senior Attorney focusing in Community Inclusion and Economic Development.

Adrienne M. B. Davis: Director of Research, Community Services and Student Programs, Adrienne Davis is a graduate of Bethune-Cookman College in Daytona Beach, FL. She received her master's of public administration degree from the School of Government at UNC-Chapel Hill. Prior to joining the Center, Davis was a project manager with Wake County Government in Raleigh, N.C. As project manager, Davis worked with County departments to implement technological solutions that would improve and enhance Wake County services and operations. Davis joined the Center in June 2006; she manages the Center's research grants, communications and student programs.

Benita N. Jones: Fellow Benita N. Jones is a graduate of Yale University. She received her law degree from Georgetown University Law Center, where she was a Dean's Scholar and a recipient of the International Academy of Trial Lawyers Student Advocacy Award. As an undergraduate, Benita taught violin and directed a university-based nonprofit that partners Yale students with underserved public school students in New Haven, CT to provide free private music lessons. During law school, Benita was a student attorney in Georgetown's Harrison Institute for Housing and Community Development, where she designed and co-taught finance and entrepreneurship workshops for clinic clients and provided legal counsel to housing cooperatives. Benita also updated the District of Columbia Tenant Survival Guide, a Harrison Institute publication in circulation throughout D.C. Before joining the Center, Benita was an associate at Klein Hornig LLP, where her practice included complex affordable housing financing transactions and economic development initiatives. Benita joined the Center in August 2009 to focus on education issues.

Sarah Krishnaraj: Fellow Sarah Krishnaraj is a three-time graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. After completing her undergraduate degree, Sarah earned a Master of Social Work in 2003 and a law degree in 2008. Prior to entering law school, Sarah worked as a research assistant to Sen. Ellie Kinnaird in the NC General Assembly and served as an Americorps VISTA with Progressive Redevelopment, Inc., an affordable housing developer in Atlanta, GA. During law school, Sarah pursued a variety of public interest and pro bono activities including working with Legal Aid of North Carolina and the Durham County Attorney's Office. Following her second year of law school, Sarah received the Hank Tersango Public Interest Scholarship to pursue an internship with the National Women's Law Center. While at NWLC, Sarah worked in the Family Economic Security division helping to craft legislation and public policies to assist economically vulnerable women. Sarah joined the Center in November 2008 and focuses on community inclusion and economic development issues.

William A. Tobin: Coordinator of the Center's Diversity Capital and College Success Project, William A. Tobin is a graduate of Moravian College. He received his law degree from UNC, Chapel Hill in 2006 and his PhD in History (with concentrations in Education and Sociology) from Stanford University in 1994. He has taught History and Education at Stanford, Mills College, the National University of Ireland, and presently is a Visiting-Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at Duke University. Prior to attending graduate school, Bill was an elementary school teacher in Boston and Baltimore City.

For more information about the Center, please contact: Adrienne M. B. Davis at ambdavis@email.unc.edu or (919) 843-3921.

Board of Advisors

• John Charles Boger
  Dean and Wade Edwards Distinguished Professor of Law
  UNC School of Law
• Julian Bond
  Distinguished Adjunct Professor in Residence
  American University
• Julius Chambers
  Director
  UNC Center for Civil Rights
• William Darity, Jr.
  Former Director
  UNC Institute of African American Research
• Charles Daye
  Deputy Director
  UNC Center for Civil Rights
• Leslie Dunbar
  Washington, D.C.
• Martin Eakes
  President & CEO
  Center for Community Self-Help
• William Friday
  President Emeritus
  University of North Carolina
• William Johnson
  Partner
  Johnson & Johnson, P.A.
• James Johnson, Jr.
  William Rand Kenan, Jr. Professor
  UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School
• Elaine Jones
  Former President & Director Counsel
  NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc.
• Irving Joyner
  Professor
  North Carolina Central University School of Law
• Thomas Lambeth
  Senior Fellow
  Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation
• William Leuchtenburg
  Professor Emeritus
  University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• Norma Mills
  County Attorney
  Dare County Government
• James Peacock
  Kenan Distinguished Professor
  University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• Jane Pigott
  Managing Director
  R3 Group LLC
• Teresa Roseborough
  Chief Litigation Counsel
  Metropolitan Life Insurance Company
• John Rosenberg
  Director Emeritus
  Appalachian Research and Defense Fund of Kentucky, Inc.
• Charles Sanders
  Chairman & CEO (Retired)
  Glaxo, Inc.
• Adam Stein
  Partner
  Ferguson Stein Chambers
• Charles Stone
  Walter Spearman Professor
  UNC School of Journalism and Mass Communication