#  Advocating for Civil and Human Rights 

 





As counsel for the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, **Chavis Jones, MDiv '16**, advocates for the advancement of civil and human rights across a broad range of issues.



 

December 11, 2025

 

 

     ![Chavis Jones headshot](/sites/g/files/omnuum5526/files/styles/hwp_16_9__480x270/public/2025-12/Chavis%20Jones.jpg?h=229342a8&itok=_ra0gGCF) 

Chavis Jones, MDiv '16



 



 

*Chavis Jones, MDiv ’16, Counsel, Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law (Washington, D.C.)*

*View* [*more stories*](/community-life/career-services/alumni-career-snapshots "Alumni Career Snapshots") *on HDS alumni and their career paths.*

## Describe the work you do today:

I have the honor of working at the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law at our national office in Washington, DC. The Lawyers' Committee was founded in the East Wing of the White House in the consequential civil rights summer of 1963. I am an advocate for the advancement of civil and human rights across a broad range of issues. At the Lawyers’ Committee, I have been a part of litigation, policy work, and organizing related to education issues including student debt, affirmative action, bans on Black history, HBCUs, K-12 funding, and accountability in higher education. Recently, I have also had the chance to work on litigation related algorithmic discrimination in social media and a separate case related to the FBI's surveillance of civil rights leaders during COINTELPRO. In addition to my legal work, I have been honored to teach courses on “Civil Rights Litigation” at Howard University School of Law and "Religion, Politics, and the Law" at Virginia Union University's Samuel Dewitt Proctor School of Theology.

## How has your HDS degree experience influenced your career journey?

Harvard Divinity School was a gift that I am forever grateful for. While I was studying concepts related to religion and God, I also became more human. HDS deepened my understanding of various belief systems, ways of knowing, and the ways those invisible beliefs impact the visible world in terms of how people treat each other and the systems and policies we create as people (for better or for worse). In this current moment in which we are dealing with the insidious impact of cultures and beliefs that are committed to division and fear of the other, I draw from a deep well of lessons learned at HDS on the cultural production of evil, moral decay, and the intersections between race, religion, and political beliefs. At Morehouse, I was constantly thinking about and surrounded by civil and human rights history and strategy. So, when I arrived at HDS, I spent a lot of time studying forebearers from various movements, like MLK and others, who drew from their belief systems to challenge culturally-held prejudices and violence in its physical, systemic, and cultural forms. My work stands in that tradition. HDS (and Harvard more broadly) gave me some of the best professors and classmates I could have asked for to engage on these ideas, to continually broaden the horizons of my concern beyond my own communities, and it consistently challenged me to grow as a human. Whether working on a civil rights case, participating in a protest, or sharing thoughts in a classroom, on a panel, or in a church community, the work I did at HDS goes where I go.

## What career advice would you offer to current HDS students?

In times like these, challenge yourself to study broadly and deeply. We obviously need more people who are committed to social justice, but we desperately need people who have the skills to understand the belief systems that undergird systems of injustice, the tools to disentangle those systems, the imagination to help co-create new worlds, and the heart to serve those who are being harmed in the present world.

Be a light, there's enough darkness out there.



 

 

 



 

 See also:- [ Alumni News and Profiles ](/discover-stories-about/alumni-news-and-profiles)