Dr. Cherie Dawson-Edwards lives in Louisville and has served on the ACLU of Kentucky's Board of Directors for 14 years. She also represents Kentucky on the ACLU's national board. In May 2021, she was appointed Deputy Equity Affiliate Officer of the national board. In that role, she will help ACLU affiliates (the state-level offices) live up to their values around equity, diversity, inclusion, and belonging. She will play an active role in the affiliate executive director search processes, and will oversee the annual demographics survey and report to the national board in the areas of: affiliate staff, affiliate boards, and national board composition.
She is also involved in several other organizations, including the Governor’s Juvenile Justice Advisory Board (JJAB), where she serves as an appointee and represents JJAB on the statewide Subcommittee for Equity and Justice for All Youth (SEJAY) and as the Chair of the Community Alliances Workgroup. Dr. Dawson-Edwards is passionate about the ACLU of Kentucky's mission and uses her expertise in policy to help advance the organization's goals and hold it accountable to the same standards it expects of public entities.
Dr. Dawson-Edwards is the Associate Dean for Diversity, Engagement, Culture, and Climate and an Association Professor of the Department of Criminal Justice in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Louisville. She earned her Ph.D. in Public Policy and Administration from Virginia Commonwealth University. She earned her bachelor's degrees in sociology and journalism from Western Kentucky University and a Master of Science in Justice Administration from the University of Louisville, where she concentrated research on racial profiling. She has taught a variety of criminal justice courses, but her research and teaching interests center on the intersection of public policy and criminal justice, with a specific focus on the field of corrections. Her most recent publications can be found in the Journal of Offender Rehabilitation and Professional Issues in Criminal Justice. She is a member of the National Association of Blacks in Criminal Justice, American Correctional Association, Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences, and the Southern Criminal Justice Association.