ACLU’S Jameel Jaffer to Direct Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University

Columbia University President Lee C. Bollinger announced his appointment of Jameel Jaffer, deputy legal director at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), as founding director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. In June, Columbia and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation announced the creation of the new institute which will work—through litigation, research and public advocacy—to preserve and expand the freedoms of expression and the press in the digital age.

A graduate of Harvard Law School, where he was an Editor of the Law Review, Jaffer served as a law clerk to Hon. Amalya L. Kearse on the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and then to Rt. Hon. Beverley McLachlin, Chief Justice of Canada. His writing has been published in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Guardian, and other publications. His new book, The Drone Memos, will be published by The New Press in November.