Lenessa Owens-Chaplin
Director
New York Civil Liberties Union
Biography
Lanessa Owens-Chaplin is a civil rights attorney and movement leader advancing racial justice through litigation, policy advocacy, and community-centered strategies. She serves as Director of the Racial Justice Center at the New York Civil Liberties Union, where she leads statewide efforts to confront structural racism embedded in New York’s laws, infrastructure, and systems of governance. Her work spans environmental justice, reparations, Indigenous sovereignty, housing equity, and the enforcement of constitutional rights, with a particular focus on addressing the disproportionate harms faced by Black, Indigenous, and other marginalized communities. Owens-Chaplin has played a leading role in high-impact advocacy addressing environmental racism, infrastructure-driven displacement, and government failures that endanger public health, including statewide and local campaigns related to lead contamination and constitutional environmental protections. Previously, Owens-Chaplin held senior leadership roles in New York State government, including serving as Deputy Secretary of Intergovernmental Affairs to the Speaker of the New York State Assembly, where she worked across agencies and levels of government to advance policy reforms in criminal justice, economic equity, and access to opportunity. She began her legal career in appellate advocacy, challenging unjust and excessive sentencing. Owens-Chaplin is the Founder of the first William Herbert Johnson Bar Association of Central New York and has served in numerous appointed roles, including as a New York delegate to the National Environmental Justice Advisory Council and New York State Judicial Commission and Appointee of the State of New York Grievance Committee of the Fifth Judicial District. Publications include Building a Better Future, The Structural Racism Built into I-81, and How to Tear it Down; Tulsa's Greenwood neighborhood wasn't America's only Black Wall Street, USA Today; New York’s Green Amendment: Curbing Environmental Racism, New York Law Journal." She holds a Juris Doctor and an LL.M. in Environmental Law and has been recognized for her leadership, scholarship, and commitment to community-driven civil rights advocacy.