Join the Arts Administrators of Color Network for a deep dive session led by legal experts from Democracy Forward (see bios below). We'll examine policies affecting organizations engaged in DEI and racial equity work and discuss strategies to support BIPOC leaders while complying with legal parameters. Learn about organizations bringing increased attacks and gain practical strategies to safeguard your organization and prioritize BIPOC communities despite the legal and political climate.

This session is designed for BIPOC arts administrators at any level, equipping our AAC community with the information, skills, and connections to continue advancing racial equity through their work despite policy-related challenges.

Democracy Forward has provided their recent report as a resource and it is linked here for download: One Year After the Supreme Court’s Rollback of Considerations of Race in College Admissions: Safeguarding and Strengthening Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Initiatives.

This event is designed for BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) and/or global majority-identifying artists and arts leaders. This session will not be recorded.

Session Leaders

Sunu P. Chandy, Senior Advisor, Democracy Forward
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Sunu P. Chandy (she/her) is a Senior Advisor with Democracy Forward. Sunu has served as a civil rights lawyer for over 20 years including in the context of workers’ rights, gender justice, and LGBTQ+ rights. She also currently serves on the board of the Transgender Law Center. Sunu is also a published poet, and the author of the award-winning collection, My Dear Comrades.

Before joining Democracy Forward, Sunu served as Legal Director of the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC) for six years until August 2023. There, she oversaw the Center’s direct litigation efforts and amicus practice, including as counsel on several Supreme Court amicus briefs. Sunu also led the Center’s policy work on LGBTQI+ Rights including by providing Congressional testimony, and also gave strategic input for other policy work including around workplace justice.

Before NWLC, Sunu served as the Deputy Director for the Civil Rights Division with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), where she led civil rights enforcement including under Section 1557 of the ACA. Before that, Sunu and her family moved to DC in the Fall of 2014 when she was recruited into the General Counsel role at the DC Office of Human Rights (OHR), and there she oversaw the agency’s civil rights legal determinations, including matters of first impression under the Fair Criminal Record Screening Act.

Previously, Sunu was a federal attorney with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) in the New York District Office for 15 years and litigated cases based on race, sex, national origin, disability, age and religion-based discrimination. At EEOC, Sunu also led outreach initiatives including as a member of the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (WHIAPPI) Regional Working Group. Before that, Sunu began her legal career as a law firm associate representing unions and individual workers in New York City at Gladstein, Reif and Megginniss, LLP.

Sunu earned her B.A. in Peace and Global Studies/Women’s Studies from Earlham College, her law degree from Northeastern University School of Law and her MFA in Creative Writing (Poetry) from Queens College, CUNY. Sunu has served on the boards of directors of several organizations including the Audre Lorde Project, South Asian Women’s Creative Collective (SAWCC), LeGal (the LGBTQ attorneys’ organization in New York City), and Split This Rock, a national social justice poetry organization. Sunu is cited as a legal expert on a range of topics including workplace civil rights, gender justice, and LGBTQ+ rights including by The New York Times, The Washington Post, LA Times, and NPR.

Brooke Menschel, Senior Counsel, Democracy Forward
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Brooke Menschel is a Senior Counsel at Democracy Forward, where she represents organizations and individuals seeking to promote pro-democracy laws and policies through litigation and regulatory advocacy. Her work has focused on challenging efforts to censor diverse perspectives, promoting inclusive workplaces and government forums, defending workers’ rights, challenging unconstitutional conditions of confinement, and other issues.

Brooke joined Democracy Forward from Brooklyn Defender Services, where she served as the Director of Civil Rights and Law Reform and worked to address systemic deficiencies in New York City’s Department of Correction and family, immigration, and criminal courts. Prior to joining BDS, Brooke litigated state and federal trial and appellate cases concerning children’s rights, juvenile justice, the criminal legal system, and mass incarceration in the Deep South at the Southern Poverty Law Center and in New York at the local affiliate of the ACLU. Brooke has also worked as a policy and legislative advocate on human and civil rights issues in Washington, D.C., and as communications strategist in Boston.

Brooke received her J.D. from the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law and her B.A. from Tufts University. She is a member of the bar in Washington, D.C., New York, and Alabama.