Advice to Thrive By

Portia Allen-Kyle is a civil rights attorney and social justice advocate with extensive experience in legislative and policy advocacy in the areas of racial equity, criminal legal system reform, civil liberties, and economic justice. She currently serves as the Associate Director of Law and Policy at the Voting Rights Lab where she devises and executes policy strategy on voter restoration and ballot access issues. Most recently Portia served as a policy advisor for the Pete for America campaign where she was the co-architect of the signature 'Douglass Plan' campaign platform and advised the campaign on various policy, communications, and constituency needs.

Prior professional experiences include speaking, researching, and consulting on civil rights, diversity, and racial justice issues for various nonprofits and educational entities, including the American Civil Liberties Union. Portia has also taught at Rutgers University and at St. Thomas Aquinas College where she taught courses on criminology, sociology, and race.

Portia is committed to leadership and public service. She recently stepped down as Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Urban Resource Institute, which provides comprehensive human services programs to empower individuals and families in the New York metropolitan area experiencing domestic violence and homelessness. She also previously served as an inaugural member of the Civilian Complaint Review Board of Newark, New Jersey.

In 2019 Portia was selected as a 2019 Council of Urban Professionals fellow. She received her B.A. from Wellesley College, an M.A. from Columbia University, an M.A. in Sociology from Rutgers University and a J.D. from Rutgers University School of Law-Newark. She is passionate about racial justice, policing, social control, and how people experience law and policy, and has presented at a number of national conferences and community forums on these topics.