Professor Janel George

Janel George is an Associate Professor of Law and the founding Director of the Racial Equity in Education Law and Policy (REEL Policy) Clinic. Her clinical projects and research focus on the development and implementation of legislative interventions to advance racial equity in education at the local, state, and federal levels. The REEL Policy Clinic employs a range of policy strategies to address clients’ priorities, including legal and legislative research and analysis, public education, coalition-building, community education, and oral and written advocacy. The Clinic’s clients range from student-led organizations, to coalitions, to non-profit organizations dedicated to advancing racial equity in education.

Her scholarship focuses on the potential of legislative interventions to eradicate racial inequalities in education. She has written about legislative interventions to help address racial disparities related to school discipline, resource inequities, as well as the significance of the federal government’s role in helping to remedy longstanding school segregation. This work includes articles such as Stereotype and School Pushout: Race, Gender, and Discipline Disparities, 68 Ark. L. Rev. 101 (2015) and Populating the Pipeline: School Policing and the Persistence of the School-to-Prison Pipeline, 40 Nova L. Rev. 493 (2015-2016), as well as the report The Federal Role and School Integration: Brown’s Promise and Present Challenges with Linda Darling-Hammond. She employs Critical Race Theory as an approach for analyzing the reproduction of racial inequalities in education through laws and policies and examines legislative interventions to help eradicate them. She has also produced commentary that has been published in Ms., CNN, Education Week, and other outlets. Her work and scholarship are informed by her experience as a congressional staffer and as a legislative lawyer with several non-profits. She has also spoken across the country about issues of racial inequality in education, including before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and the U.S. Department of Education.

George began her legal career as a Georgetown Law Women’s Law and Public Policy Fellow with the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum. During her fellowship, she worked on issues of immigration reform and reproductive justice. She has previously served as Senior Counsel with the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., where she worked to reform discriminatory school discipline practices in partnership with member organizations of the Dignity in Schools Campaign. She worked with the Campaign to help to secure provisions promoting positive and inclusive school climates in the Every Student Succeeds Act. She also served as a member of the Negotiated Rulemaking Committee for the law. During her time at LDF, she also worked on other state and federal education issues. She has also worked as counsel in the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, during which time she managed a legislative portfolio that included education, health care, immigration, judiciary, and civil rights issues. Prior to joining Georgetown Law, she served as a Senior Policy Advisor with the Learning Policy Institute where she co-led the Equitable Resources and Access team and worked disseminate evidence to help inform policies to address school segregation and school finance reform.

She has served as an adjunct professor with Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy where she developed and taught a seminar on racial inequality in k-12 education and with Georgetown Law where she developed and taught a seminar focused on advocating for educational equity within the federal regulatory process. She is on the Board of the Education Law Center and is a Council Member of the American Bar Association’s Civil Rights and Social Justice Section and co-chair of the Education Committee. She received her JD from the University of Wisconsin Law School where she was a managing editor of the Wisconsin Law Review and her BA from Spelman College.

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.

Ramy Andil

Ramy Andil serves as the Office Manager for three of Georgetown Law’s clinical programs. He manages the day-to-day operations of the Health Justice Alliance Clinic, Georgetown’s DC Street Law Program, and the Racial Equity in Education Law and Policy Clinic. Prior to joining the clinics team, Ramy worked in the Georgetown Law Copy and Mail Center as a customer service assistant.

Ramy received his B.A. in Psychology from Georgetown University’s main campus in 2021.