News & Commentary written by Lee Rowland

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Lee Rowland

Policy Director

NYCLU

Bio

Lee Rowland () is policy director at the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU), the ÌÒ×ÓÊÓÆµin New York. She was previously a senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project. Lee has extensive experience as a litigator, lobbyist, and public speaker. She has served as lead counsel in federal First Amendment cases involving public employee speech rights, the First Amendment rights of community advocates, government regulation of digital speech, and state secrecy surrounding the lethal injection process. She also authors amicus briefs and blogs on topics including the intersection of speech and privacy, student and public employee speech, obscenity, and the Communications Decency Act.

While at the ACLU, Lee has served as an adjunct clinical professor for NYU Law’s Technology Law and Policy Clinic, a member of the New York Bar Association’s Communications and Media Law Committee, and an adjunct faculty member in the Human Rights Program at the Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute at Hunter College. Lee was previously a voting rights counsel with the Brennan Center for Justice; and before that, ran the Reno office of the ÌÒ×ÓÊÓÆµof Nevada, where she regularly argued before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and the Nevada Supreme Court. Lee is a graduate of Middlebury College and Harvard Law School.


Featured work

Aug 26, 2021

Jill Lepore on What It Means to be an American Citizen

Jill Lepore on What It Means to be an American Citizen

Mar 9, 2018

Free Speech Can Be Messy, but We Need It

Free Speech Can Be Messy, but We Need It

Aug 9, 2017

The First Amendment (Literally) Banned in DC

The First Amendment (Literally) Banned in DC

Jun 19, 2017

Victory! The Slants Are Officially Rock Stars of the First Amendment

Victory! The Slants Are Officially Rock Stars of the First Amendment

Apr 25, 2017

We All Need to Defend Speech We Hate

We All Need to Defend Speech We Hate

Apr 20, 2017

Donald Trump Has Free Speech Rights, Too

Donald Trump Has Free Speech Rights, Too

Feb 17, 2017

Where Protests Flourish, Anti-Protest Bills Follow

Where Protests Flourish, Anti-Protest Bills Follow

Feb 9, 2017

Small-Town Activists Stand Up to a Coal Ash Landfill and Win a Major Victory for Free Speech

Small-Town Activists Stand Up to a Coal Ash Landfill and Win a Major Victory for Free Speech

Nov 29, 2016

No, President-Elect Trump, You Can’t Get Locked Up or Lose Your American Citizenship for Political Speech

No, President-Elect Trump, You Can’t Get Locked Up or Lose Your American Citizenship for Political Speech

Aug 12, 2016

Making Sure the Revolution Gets Televised

Making Sure the Revolution Gets Televised