Equal Rights Center Appoints New Executive Director

Washington – April 8, 2020 – Today the Equal Rights Center (ERC) – a national non-profit civil rights organization – announced that its Board of Directors has appointed Kate Scott as the organization’s new Executive Director. 

“I am deeply committed to the ERC’s mission and thrilled to have the opportunity to continue working with the organization in this new role. Throughout the course of my career, I’ve had the opportunity to witness what a powerful tool civil rights testing can be in the fight for civil rights,” said Kate Scott, Executive Director of the ERC. 

Scott joined the ERC in 2015 as its Director of Fair Housing and was promoted to Deputy Director in 2017. She took over as the Interim Executive Director at the end of October 2019 and has been leading the organization during a transition period over the last five months. In her time with the ERC, she has conceptualized, developed and produced systemic investigations and consequential reports, including Unlocking Discrimination, Next Generation Segregation, From Click to Visit, and Behind Closed Doors. She also led the organization’s involvement in key pieces of impact litigation. Prior to joining the ERC, Scott served in multiple roles at the Fair Housing Action Center in New Orleans and served on the boards of various community organizations focused on housing and racial justice in the post-Katrina environment. 

“We are thrilled to have someone with such programmatic and organizational knowledge stepping into the role of the Executive Director,” said ERC Board President and American University Law Professor Robert Dinerstein. “Through working with Kate during her time at the ERC, I have seen the vision she has for the organization. With the experience she brings to the table, we are confident Kate will successfully lead the Equal Rights Center and enable it to achieve its mission.” 

The ERC was formed in 1999 by a merger of the Fair Housing Council of Greater Washington, which was established in 1983, and its sister organization, the Fair Employment Council of Greater Washington. In 2005, the Disability Rights Council and its membership joined the ERC. Through its use of civil rights testing, the ERC identifies and seeks to eliminate unlawful and unfair discrimination in housing, employment and public accommodations in its home community of Greater Washington DC and nationwide. The ERC’s core strategy for identifying unlawful and unfair discrimination is civil rights testing. For more information, please visit equalrightscenter.org. 

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CONTACT

Sian Leach
External Affairs Manager, Equal Rights Center
sleach@equalrightscenter.org
(202) 370-3206