NEW ORLEANS — Kirkland & Ellis has announced that Dillard University’s Center for Racial Justice will receive a $5 million gift to create an endowment to fund paid internships at various civil rights and public interest organizations. Dillard alumnus, Michael D. Jones, Esq., is Kirkland’s first Black partner.
Dillard is among seven Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), nonprofits and community organizations that will receive a total of $12.5 million. The entities that are receiving donations share a common mission to advance racial justice, equity and civil rights. The funds being donated were statutory fees awarded to Kirkland & Ellis by the state of Maryland as a part of its landmark $577 million settlement with a coalition of students, faculty and alumni of its four public HBCUs. For 12 years, Kirkland represented the coalition on a pro bono basis, alongside the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.
About the Center for Racial Justice
Founded in 2020, the Center for Racial Justice at Dillard University addresses racism and injustice through community collaboration, lectures, research, advocacy training, civic engagement, and political participation. The Center for Racial Justice seeks to bring systemic change to the way policing is done in communities of color and to promote partnerships with law enforcement including police departments and sheriff’s offices, and graduate and professional schools. Learn more by visiting www.dillard.edu/racialjustice.
About Kirkland & Ellis
Kirkland & Ellis is an international law firm with more than 3,000 attorneys representing clients in private equity, M&A and other complex corporate transactions, litigation and dispute resolution/arbitration, restructuring, and intellectual property matters. The Firm operates from offices in 18 cities around the world: Austin, Beijing, Boston, Brussels, Chicago, Dallas, Hong Kong, Houston, London, Los Angeles, Munich, New York, Palo Alto, Paris, Salt Lake City, San Francisco, Shanghai and Washington, D.C.
