Akiesha Anderson

Akiesha Anderson is the Daniel H. Renberg Law Fellow for the Williams Institute. Immediately prior to joining the Williams Institute, Akiesha worked and provided legal, public policy, and legislative analysis for the Human Rights Campaign, the National Center for Lesbian Rights, and the Southern Poverty Law Center’s LGBT-Rights legal team. Much of her past research focused on the rise of religious liberty and anti-LGBTQ legislation.

Akiesha earned a law degree and Certificate in Government Affairs from The University of Alabama. She also earned a Master’s Degree in Public Administration summa cum laude from Auburn University-Montgomery and a Bachelor of Arts degree cum laude in Sociology and Business Management from Alabama State University.

While in law school, Akiesha served as the Vice President of OutLaw; the Attorney General for the Southern Region of the Black Law Students Association; the Editor-in-Chief of The Southern Journal of Policy and Justice; and the Student Notes Editor of the Alabama Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Law Review. She also authored Education in Alabama: A Privilege or a Right? What Alabama’s Tax Decisions Reveal About Historical and Intentional K-12 Education Disenfranchisement, 41 N.Y.U. Rev. L. & Soc. Change Harbinger 295 (Apr. 2017).

Akiesha has always been most interested in analyzing the existence of social stratification. Particularly, she enjoys studying the barriers to social mobility that members of multiple marginalized communities encounter; and the ways in which policies and laws can create, perpetuate, or dismantle modern-day caste systems.