Courtney Reed Jenkins, JD, CPM

Dr. Marian Wright-Edelman said, “Service is the rent we pay for being.”  Courtney has “paid her rent” through two decades of work in the nonprofit and government sectors – always with a clear focus on eliminating institutional barriers to success for underserved youth.  She started her career in education as a paraprofessional in a segregated school for students with disabilities, which literally paid for – and informed the focus of – her legal training.  Since then, she has conducted legal investigations under federal and state civil rights laws for the State of Wisconsin; managed systems-change state initiatives focused on gender and racial equity in Colorado, Idaho, Iowa and Wisconsin; and served on the senior management team of a national civil rights organization.  Courtney is the daughter, niece, parent, and sister to people with disabilities and is a parent to a justice-involved youth. Courtney focuses on justice in education in honor of her mother, who grew up white in the segregated south, and her daughters, to whom she wants to leave a fairer world.