About Rini
As an attorney, educator and advocate, Rini has worked for over twenty years to build power and capacity in low-income communities of color and to dismantle systemic racism and oppression. Bringing her depth and breadth of experience across non-profit organizations, government and philanthropy, Rini is committed to using her management and facilitation acumen to supporting leaders and organizations working towards racial, social and economic justice. Most recently, Rini served as New York City’s first Chief Democracy Officer, developing and implementing innovative programming to civically engage all New Yorkers.
At the ACLU Racial Justice Program, Rini litigated groundbreaking cases across the country to end segregation in public schools and the school-to-prison pipeline that criminalizes our young people. From Hartford, Connecticut to the Rosebud Sioux Reservation in South Dakota and her home in NYC, Rini fought for young people and their families seeking to address the harm caused by systemic racism. At the Urban Justice Center, Rini also supported community organizing and built power in low-income Black and immigrant communities of color in NYC as a housing attorney representing tenants who were harassed by their landlords.
As a teacher, Rini partnered with community organizers in Brooklyn to develop curriculum for a first-in-kind, yearlong social justice seminar for high school seniors at the Bushwick School for Social Justice. She also taught GED and writing courses to incarcerated women on Rikers Island, and investigated police misconduct with the Civilian Complaint Review Board. Internationally, Rini worked with Partners in Health in Rwanda to roll out a community health worker training program. She also worked as a secondary school teacher in Uganda.
In 2018, Rini was appointed New York City’s first Chief Democracy Officer, where she worked to amplify the voice of every New Yorker, including marginalized communities that have historically been disenfranchised. Her work has included developing robust voter-registration drives, expanding civics education across all ages for the 1.1 million children attending New York City schools, and partnering with community-based organizations, elected officials and agencies at all levels of government, and the philanthropic community to get more New Yorkers civically engaged.
Rini earned degrees with honors from Harvard College, Harvard Law School and Fordham Graduate School of Education. At Harvard College, Rini served as President of the Phillips Brooks House Association, a student-led non-profit organization that engaged 1,800 students in service to 10,000 people in the greater Boston area. At Harvard Law School, Rini represented indigent defendants in criminal cases, low-income students in special education cases and struggling renters in post-foreclosure eviction defense matters.
Rini is from a family of immigrants from Uganda and Guyana; she was born in New York City and grew up in Jersey City and Newark, NJ.
