8. Protecting Civil and Human Rights: Advocacy and Hope with Joanne Lin

I’m honored to welcome Joanne Lin, Executive Director of Washington Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs. Ms. Lin is a seasoned attorney and fierce advocate for civil and human rights. She shares the challenges and rewards of a life committed to serving others in a contentious world. The relentless tide of global news can be a harsh reality to confront daily. Yet, amidst this, Joanne is deeply motivated to improve the lives of others. We discuss the challenges of polarization and the need to decompress and care for ourselves. We scrutinize the ironies of the digital age, where information abundance oddly narrows our worldviews, often shutting out both nuance and complexities. Finally, we underscore the sustaining power of hope and purpose.

Joanne Lin brings 25 years of experience in advancing civil and human rights at every level of government – from the local to the national to the international arenas. She started her career in San Francisco representing women and children in family law, restraining orders, and immigration matters. She later joined one of the nation’s premier immigration firms where she handled complex immigration cases, including appeals in the federal courts. She later moved to Washington, D.C. where she has led policy advocacy on women’s rights, civil rights, immigrants’ rights, and international refugee protection, at several leading human rights organizations.

At Amnesty International USA, Ms. Lin tripled the size of the advocacy team that organized Capitol Hill lobby days and a 2020 presidential candidates’ forum. She was recognized as a top grassroots association lobbyist by The Hill for four consecutive years, from 2018 to 2021. In 2021, she received the Women’s Leadership Award from the National Asian-Pacific American Bar Association.

Before joining Amnesty, Ms. Lin was senior legislative counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union for 10 years where she led ACLU’s federal immigration policy advocacy program with a focus on protecting refugees and asylum seekers, keeping immigrant families together, curtailing profiteering in immigration detention, and preventing sexual assault in immigration detention. She worked closely in concert with ACLU litigators to develop campaigns promoting prison reform, education equity, and immigration due process.

Ms. Lin is a graduate of New York University School of Law, Stanford School of Education, and Stanford University.

Joanne is Executive Director at The Washington Lawyers' Committee.

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Summary

• Formative experiences. 1:57
• Civil rights and human rights challenges. 6:03
• Raising children in a complicated, rancorous world. 8:35
• News and technology, our capacity to take things in. 10:51
• Rewards of civil and human rights work. 15.34
• Seeing and sharing both nuance and complexity in issues. 20:41
• Human rights work and self-care. 34:17
• Seasons of life, purpose, and hope. 40:38