Kaitlin Banner is Deputy Legal Director at the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs. She directs the Committee’s education justice project, which seeks to ensure that students of color have equal access to education opportunities, and WLC’s public accommodations and disability rights project, which fights for people with disabilities to have the ability to thrive in integrated and accessible communities. Representative cases include Virginia State Conference of the NAACP et al. v. Shenandoah County School Board (challenging the School Board’s 2024 decision to name schools after Confederate generals); Charles H. v. District of Columbia (class action challenging the failure to provide special education at the DC Jail); Black Lives Matter et. al vs. Trump et. al (class action challenging the assault on Black Lives Matter protesters at Lafayette Square); and Costa et. al v. Bazron et al. (challenging failure of psychiatric hospital to keep patients safe during public health emergencies).
Prior to joining the Committee, Kaitlin was the Deputy Program Director and Acting Director of Advancement Project’s Opportunity to Learn Program. There, Kaitlin worked alongside communities on reducing the overuse and disparate use of zero-tolerance school discipline policies and stopping the criminalization of young people of color by employing creative legal tactics and policy reform. Kaitlin it also an alum the Took Crowell Institute for At-Risk Youth at the UDC David A. Clarke School of Law (Legal Fellow and Clinical Instructor) and the American Civil Liberties Union of the Nation’s Capital (Crowell & Morning Equal Justice Works Fellow). Kaitlin holds a B.A. from Villanova University, a J.D. from The George Washington University Law School, and an LL.M. from the University of the District of Columbia David A. Clarke School of Law. Kaitlin is admitted to practice in New York and the District of Columbia.
Education
- J.D., The George Washington University Law
- LL. M., University of the District of Columbia David A. Clarke School of Law
- B.A., Villanova University
Bar Admissions
- District of Columbia
- New York
Professional Activities
Adjunct Professor, Georgetown University Law School Juvenile Justice Clinic
