Board of Directors

Chair Gloria J. Browne-Marshall, JD/MA
Gloria J. Browne-Marshall is an attorney with expertise in Constitutional law and international issues. Ms. Browne-Marshall is an Associate Professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice (CUNY) and the Graduate Center. She has worked with law and policy issues of concern to vulnerable groups, specifically children, women, and people of color in the United States, Africa, and Europe. She has a litigation background in civil rights, children's healthcare, education, and criminal justice issues. She has presented interventions before the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, on issues of racial justice and is the former Legal Advisor to the Permanent Representation to the United Nations in Geneva and New York of the African Bureau of Educational Sciences/OAU. Ms. Browne-Marshall is an active member of the American Bar Association as well as other national and international legal associations and child advocacy organizations. She is a professor, playwright, and author of The Constitution: Major Cases and Conflicts as well as Race, Law, and American Society: 1607 to Present.

Secretary Philip Aka, Ph.D./JD/LLM
Dr. Philip Aka is a Full Professor at Chicago State University in Illinois. Dr. Aka is an expert on International Human Rights issues. Dr. Aka has written extensively on International Human Rights issues affecting Nigeria, Constitutional Law concerns in Africa, and political reform measures, generally. Dr. Aka has published numerous articles in legal as well as social science journals. He received his Juris Doctor from Temple University School of Law and his doctorate from Howard University.

Treasurer Ernie Marshall
Ernie Marshall is an accountant with over 20 years of experience in public accounting. He is CEO of Ernie Marshall, Inc., a business management accounting firm, which serves the entertainment industry as well as the non-profit sector. Mr. Marshall has provided accounting services to civic, cultural, and social justice organizations across the U.S.  

Board of Advisors 

Leslie K. Brown, MBA/MPH 
 Leslie K. Brown is Senior Vice President of Social Services Consulting for the National Executive Service Corps. (NESC) a non-profit consulting organization.
  Ms. Brown has over 20 years experience in global healthcare and financial markets in Marketing, Strategic Planning, and Business Development.  She is an Advocate Council Member for Planned Parenthood of New York City.   Ms. Brown received her M.P.H. from the University of Illinois, School of Public Health,  and her M.B.A. from the University of Chicago, Graduate School of Business. She is currently enrolled at the New York University, SCPS, Film Production Program.

Jocelyn Cooper, MSW
Jocelyn Cooper is a former adjunct professor at Adelphia Unversity School of Social Work. She is a former Director of the Community Development Agency for the City of New York. Mrs. Cooper is a member of the Board of Planned Parenthood of New York City and an alumnae of Brooklyn Chapter LINKS. Mrs. Cooper is the wife of the late Andrew Cooper. Mr. Cooper was the founder and publisher of the City Sun of New York. She and her husband "Andy" Cooper have worked for over 50 years in the area of racial equality, literacy, and social justice.

Michael Cooper, M.A.
Michael Cooper is an internationally recognized human rights advocate. Mr. Cooper is the Director of  Program Partnerships for Mercy Corps. His work in International Human Rights has involved extended travel in Iraq as well as Bosnia. Mr. Cooper directed a major 50th Anniversary celebration of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights.

Ruth Morrison, M.A.
Ruth Morrison is Executive Director of the Brooklyn International Trade Development Center at Medgar Evers College (BITDC), an international trade development organization created to promote the expansion of Brooklyn's economy through increased international trade in goods and services and related activities with the overall goal of workforce development and job creation.  Ms. Morrison is the founder and president of Advanced Communications Strategies Group, a leading digital media, marketing, and public relations company with a focus on under-served markets. ACSG's media assets include the television program, What's The 411? and the African American Literary Awards Show. Ms. Morrison founded and chaired the Telecommunications Working Group, a "trade association" of city telecommunications managers. She is a member of several film, cable television and arts and culture organizations. She is a graduate of the Tisch School of New York University and has completed coursework toward a Ph.D. in political science at Coumbia University. Earlene Bethel-Sperling is Earlen

Eleanor Rollins
Eleanor Rollins has a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and Urban Planning, Brooklyn College (CUNY) and a Masters of Regional Planning, Harvard University. She is a former Dean of Roxbury Community College, Boston, Massachusetts. She was also an affirmative action officer and faculty member at the Borough of Manhattan Community College while there she worked as a researcher. She has also been Director of East Harlem Community Action Project as well as Research Associate/Program Director for New York City Technical College and Graduate School.  Eleanor Rollins is a Board Member of the Society for the Preservation of Bedford-Stuyvescent History and of the Weeksville Society. She is also a member of the Board of the Caldonia (Brooklyn Hospital Health Center). She is a past board member of the YWCA (Brooklyn).

Walter White, JD
Walter White is a partner at the firm of Grundberg Mocatta Rakison LLP a law firm of solicitors and international lawyers headquartered in London, England. Mr. White is an active member of the American Bar Association, Board of Trustees of Hampshire College as well as social justice organizations.

Friends of The Law and Policy Group, Inc.
Randle B. Haley
Randle Haley is a civil rights attorney in Philadelphia and has a bachelor’s degree in journalism.  In 1990 he began publishing a series of articles in national law publications focusing on civil rights and affirmative action.  Over the years, he has hosted several programs, taught seminars, and sat on numerous panels discussing these issues.  In 1997 he wrote and co-directed a short documentary video on the life and times of the late Justice Robert N.C. Nix, Jr., former Chief Justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court upon the occasion of the justice’s retirement.  Since the early/mid-90s, Haley has written a number of screenplays, short stage plays and short stories.   The Secrets of Darlene Dalton is his first novel.  He is currently at work completing a second novel. Randle Haley is a graduate of Georgetown University Law Center and Michigan State University where he received a Bachelors of Arts in Journalism