Clinic Faculty and Staff
Professor Janel George
Professor George’s work and scholarship focus on racial stratification in public education and the role of the law in perpetuating it. She is the founding director of the Racial Equity in Education Law and Policy Clinic (REEL Policy Clinic), which is Georgetown Law’s newest clinic. Professor George’s scholarship has appeared or is forthcoming in the Columbia Law Review(This link opens in a new tab), the Georgetown Law Journal(This link opens in a new tab), the Fordham Urban Law Journal(This link opens in a new tab), and the Clinical Law Review(This link opens in a new tab), among others. She has also produced commentary that has been published in Ms., CNN, Education Week, Teen Vogue, and other outlets.
She began her legal career as a Women’s Law and Public Policy Fellow with Georgetown University Law Center. She is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School, where she served as a Managing Editor of the Wisconsin Law Review, and Spelman College. She has served as an adjunct professor with Georgetown Law and Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy, as well as a congressional staffer and senior counsel with the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. As legislative counsel on Capitol Hill, her portfolio included issues of health care, civil rights, immigration, and education. At LDF, she worked with a large coalition, the Dignity in Schools Campaign, to reform discriminatory school discipline practices. She has co-authored policy reports on Black girls and education, and as a policy advisor at the Learning Policy Institute, on magnet schools and the federal role and school integration.
Amber Koonce
Amber Koonce is an Adjunct Professor of Law and the Senior Director of Legal Research and Development at PolicyLink, where she counsels on legal strategies and policy interventions to promote the full effectuation of the 14th Amendment, an inclusive economy, and representative democracy. Prior to this role, Amber was Assistant Counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund where she litigated matters of economic justice, employment, and equal access to education. In that role, Amber represented Nikole Hannah-Jones(This link opens in a new tab) in her tenure dispute with UNC; filed an amicus brief in the Supreme Court’s UNC affirmative action case(This link opens in a new tab); filed a complaint challenging the censorship of Black history and other inclusive topics in South Carolina public schools; and represented a class of Black parents and students seeking the complete desegregation of their school system in Alabama. Amber also served as Lead Counsel for Community Development Financial Institution advocacy; co-authored Economic Justice guidance for Businesses and Funders(This link opens in a new tab), overviewing Title VI, Title VII and Section 1981 compliance in a post-SFFA landscape; and filed an amicus brief defending NASDAQ’s diversity disclosure rule for corporate boards(This link opens in a new tab). Amber has presented to a number of organizations on these matters, including the National Association of Counsel for Children, the Affirmative Action Coalition at UNC-Chapel Hill, the Black Limited Partners Association, Opportunity Finance Network, Hope Policy Institute, and Open to All, among others. Amber clerked for the Honorable William A. Fletcher on the Ninth Circuit and graduated from Yale Law School.
Sophia Tan
Sophia Tan joins the Racial Equity in Education Law & Policy Clinic as an experienced legal services advocate for education access and equity. Prior to starting her fellowship, she worked as a Staff Attorney at the Legal Aid Justice Center’s Youth Justice Program serving youth, community members and advocates across Virginia. Working with organizers and attorneys in the program, Sophia represented caregivers on education law issues ranging from special education, school discipline, enrollment, and language access and partnered with colleagues to support youth-serving coalitions and campaigns. After graduating from Duke in 2019 with a J.D. and Master’s in Public Policy degree, Sophia completed a two-year fellowship with the Education Law Center-PA to increase language access and improve equitable services for multilingual students and families in public schools. Sophia started her career in public service in her hometown of Philadelphia as an office manager at a bilingual preschool and then a grant writer in an education nonprofit that trained and coached educators to improve literacy outcomes for young students.