The Leadership Conference, The Education Fund Welcome New Voting Rights, Communications Staff
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Dena L. Craig, [email protected]
WASHINGTON — The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and The Leadership Conference Education Fund announced today that Leslie Proll has joined the organizations as senior program director of voting rights and that Rachel Hooper and Mattie Goldman have joined as senior communications managers.
“As we continue our work to save democracy, I am pleased to be joined by these believers in, and supporters of, our civil and human rights,” said Maya Wiley, president and CEO of The Leadership Conference and The Education Fund. “I welcome their dedication and commitment to equality and justice.”
Leslie Proll served in the Obama administration as the director of the Departmental Office of Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Transportation. She directed the Washington office of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. for several years. While at LDF, Proll worked with Congress to reauthorize the Voting Rights Act and served as co-chair of The Leadership Conference’s Fair Housing Task Force.
Proll’s civil rights career started in Birmingham, Alabama as a law clerk to the late Chief Judge Sam Pointer, Jr. of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama. Following her clerkship, she remained in Birmingham and went on to litigate federal civil rights cases in the voting, housing, employment, and education spaces.
Proll is a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley and the University of California at Davis School of Law.
Mattie Goldman previously managed social media strategy and rapid response communications at José Andrés’ ThinkFoodGroup, and covered a range of full service, Michelin-starred, and fast casual concepts. From 2016 to 2019, she served as a communications strategist at GMMB, where she spearheaded integrated marketing campaigns for government, health care, and advocacy clients — including FEMA and the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network. In the fall of 2018, she joined the communications team of Antonio Delgado’s congressional campaign in upstate New York.
She is a Chicago native and received her B.A. in public policy from Duke University.
Rachel Hooper most recently worked at the Pew Charitable Trusts, where she was responsible for communications for the Civil Legal System Modernization and the Mental Health and Justice projects. Prior to Pew, she was communications director for the Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations — Philadelphia’s civil rights agency.
Hooper’s work experience began in journalism, first interning in TV and at radio stations, then working as a television producer in San Antonio, Texas. In government offices, she worked as district representative for a Pennsylvania state senator, and earlier as a legislative aide with the Philadelphia City Council.
Hooper graduated from Temple University with an undergraduate degree in broadcast journalism and returned for her master’s degree in social work focusing on policy and communities.
The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights is a coalition charged by its diverse membership of more than 230 national organizations to promote and protect the rights of all persons in the United States. The Leadership Conference works toward an America as good as its ideals. For more information on The Leadership Conference and its member organizations, visit www.civilrights.org.
The Leadership Conference Education Fund builds public will for federal and state policies that promote and protect the civil and human rights of all persons in the United States. The Education Fund’s campaigns empower and mobilize advocates around the country to push for progressive change in the United States. It was founded in 1969 as the education and research arm of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. For more information on The Education Fund, visit civilrights.org/edfund/.
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