Maurice R. Dyson

Biography

Following graduation from Columbia Law School as a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar, Professor Dyson practiced law with the firm of Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP where he specialized in mergers and acquisitions, securities and leverage buyouts valued over $166 billion. There Professor Dyson participated in landmark pro bono school finance litigation winning a $14 billion judgment that was upheld on appeal in an effort to win back misallocated funds for students in New York City public schools. He also led federal civil rights enforcement as the Special Projects Attorney for the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights (OCR) where he was recognized for his work in Title VI inter-district equitable school funding enforcement. He has served as educational policy adviser to the Texas State Legislature Joint Select Committee on Public School Finance. In recognition of his pioneering advocacy in algorithmic justice, Professor Dyson was appointed by the Senate President as Commissioner to the 192nd General Court of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Special Commission on Facial Recognition Technology. He has also served as an expert advisor to the U.S. Department of Commerce National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) as well as Equity AI to develop a national AI risk management framework to reduce bias and systemic inequality in the public and private sectors use of AI systems. 

Professor Dyson is a member of the Bar of the U.S. Supreme Court, and has served as pro bono volunteer to numerous public service organizations, including Casa Cornelia, the Innocence Project, and as a law clerk to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. He has also worked on family immigration visas and asylum matters as registered counsel with the U.S. Department of Justice Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR) and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). He promotes restorative justice healing circles and collaborative de-escalation training as part of his work with the ABA Policing Project in partnership with Massachusetts Chiefs of Police and Suffolk Law School. Professor Dyson has also served as the national chairperson of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) Section on Education Law, the national executive board member of the AALS Section of Minority Groups, and program coordinator of the Merrill Lynch Philanthropic Foundation and New York Urban League Scholarship Builder $16M joint education pipeline collaborative. The program was recognized by the White House for its success as an innovative K-12 education pipeline program. He is also the co-founder of the Crawford Legal Institute Mentorship Bond (CLIMB) program, an educational pipeline mentorship initiative with Crawford High School that won the California State Bar Diversity Award for Excellence in education pipeline programs. He also works with the Suffolk University Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation Center and co-chairs the DEI Committee on institutional policy matters. Working at the DC policy think tank, TransAfrica, Professor Dyson served as a special assistant to President Nelson Mandela on the South African Post-Apartheid Reinvestment Initiative; an effort to ensure reinvestment remained consistent with human rights principles.Professor Dyson remains active in the John Mercer Langston Workshop, where he mentors and supports established and new emerging scholars of color to succeed in the legal academy. Professor Dyson has contributed as an instructor and mentor on multiple occasions to the Council on Legal Education Opportunity (CLEO) program for aspiring and newly admitted law students to diversify the legal profession. Professor Dyson was also involved in the advocacy and subsequent establishment of the Institute for Research for African-American Studies at Columbia University, where he assisted its inaugural director, Dr. Manning Marable, in the design of the Institute's course offerings and supported publications. His mentorship efforts also contributed greatly to the expansion of the Charles Hamilton Houston Pre-Law Society at Columbia University and for nearly a decade, he has also mentored and taught public school students as an instructor at Columbia University's Upward Bound, Talent Search and Double Discovery Center programs. Professor Dyson has taught law on the faculties of Columbia University, Teachers College, Zhejiang University, Faculte' De Droit De L'Universite de Nice, the City University of New York, and Southern Methodist University Dedman School of Law among others.

Professor Dyson is the recipient of numerous awards including the prestigious King's Crown Award, the Kluge Award, the Albert Roothbert Fellowship Endowment, the Lester A. and Stella Porter Russell Endowment, the Society of the Order of the Barristers, the Taft Samuel Carpenter Award for Teaching Excellence, the Martin Luther King Jr. Service Award, the 50 under 50 most influential law professors national list and the C Clyde Ferguson Jr. Keynote. Professor Dyson has also published Our Promise, and numerous articles in education, civil rights, criminal justice reform, critical race "AI", game theory, government, and constitutional law. Professor Dyson is also a visual artist/muralist, financial services professional and has held multiple licensures and certifications in retirement income strategies, compassionate elder law care and complex legacy estate planning for federal service employees, families and community charities.

Education

• J.D., Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar, Columbia University School of Law
• A.B. King's Crown Scholar, Dean's List, Columbia College, Columbia University

Bar Admittance

• NY