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Jamil Jivani

Award-Winning Activist | Lawyer

Jamil Jivani
TEDx: How Racial Profiling Hurts Everyone
Jamil Jivani
Why Young Men Become Radicalized
The Personal Spark at the Heart of Why Young Men
How Do We Fix the Young Marginalized Male Crisis?
Jamil
Jamil Jivani
Jamil Jivani
TEDx: How Racial Profiling Hurts Everyone
Jamil Jivani
Why Young Men Become Radicalized
The Personal Spark at the Heart of Why Young Men
How Do We Fix the Young Marginalized Male Crisis?

Jamil Jivani tackles some of the biggest challenges in the world as a lawyer, community organizer, and teacher. With research and teaching appointments at Yale Law School and Osgoode Hall Law School, Jivani focuses on issues that impact youth, immigrants, and low-income families. He is also the founder of the Citizen Empowerment Project, a public education organization that leads initiatives related to policing, racial profiling, democratic participation, voter turnout, and economic development.

Jivani’s change leadership is informed by his personal journey of empowerment from being a failing high school student working as a dishwasher, to attending the most exclusive law school in the world. Coming from a single parent household, as a youth he nearly fell into many of the traps that send young men on a detour away from success. It is this experience that propelled him into activism, focusing on issues such as bridging the gap between police and communities, overcoming the radicalization of youth, and encouraging young people to achieve success. His TEDx Toronto talk, “How Racial Profiling Hurts Everyone, Including the Police”, has been viewed more than 110,000 times.

Jivani is currently the director of law and policy at Our Ohio Renewal, a non-profit organization founded to develop solutions to the issues raised in J.D. Vance’s bestselling memoir, Hillbilly Elegy. He was also recently appointed as Ontario’s first-ever Advocate for Community Opportunities. Jivani previously served as vice chair of the Children’s Aid Society of Toronto, and has volunteered with youth organizations in Kenya, Egypt, and Belgium.

Jivani’s work in disadvantaged neighborhoods in North America and Europe has led him to appear on BBC, CBC, CTV, and TVO. His writing has been published by The Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, National Post, and Huffington Post.

In 2013, Jivani graduated from Yale Law School where he served as President of the Yale Black Law Students Association. While at Yale, Jivani worked for Senator Cory Booker in New Jersey, as a Connecticut high school teacher and as a Manhattan corporate lawyer. Since graduating, he has practiced corporate law in Toronto at Torys LLP, and was named the 2015 Young Lawyer of the Year by the Canadian Association of Black Lawyers. He was also a 2016 recipient of the Thomson Reuters’ Lexpert Zenith Award for Diversity and Inclusion.

Jamil’s first book, Why Young Men, was published in April, 2018.

Speaking topics

Presentations listed below include in-person and virtual keynotes, as well as workshops, fireside chats, and other presentation formats.

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Client reviews

  • Jamil’s talk was a huge success. In the end, Jamil chose to give a slightly less formal talk with a lots of time for Q&A, which was very well-received by our group. He was a great fit for our conference, and I would recommend him highly to others.

  • Over the past several years, I have had the privilege of attending community events and being in meetings, where Jamil Jivani has been a keynote speaker or active participant.  This very dynamic and extremely knowledgeable individual is very adept at confronting and presenting issues, especially as they relate to diversity and inclusion. Furthermore, he has taken a leadership role in addressing systemic racism and organizing people and institutions to become more transparent and move in a direction of positive change.

  • Having led the admissions and diversity portfolios at the University of Toronto (Canada’s largest university) I have come to rely on Jamil to deliver authentic, actionable and accessible content to law school and b-school students and staff. While you can certainly source many practitioners who might speak on the topic of diversity, inclusion and leadership, it’s rare to find someone who is actually heard. Jamil has that rare gift of helping you be more reflective and honest about your own blind spots while also guiding you towards a better future state. He has helped us improve our own processes and always exceeded beyond expectation. It’s obvious when spending just a few minutes with him, that he not only delivers exceptional (and heartfelt) content, he is a thought leader in this space.

  • Jamil was the guest speaker at Uber Canada’s summer summit. Uber is always working to become part of the cultural fabric of the communities in which we operate. Jamil was able to provide great insights into the value of community engagement, and how to approach becoming partners with those on the ground looking for solutions to intractable social issues. The team was engaged throughout the talk and left inspired. I’m sure our business and the communities in which we operate will benefit from having heard from Jamil.

  • Jamil spoke to our incoming law students as part of Yale Law School’s Orientation program.  Jamil’s enthusiasm is infectious. He demonstrated how one can resist the urge to follow prescribed paths and instead forge one’s own path in the law and in life. He shared his passion for community engagement, for developing inclusive social structures, and the importance of giving back.  His entrepreneurial spirit helped show students how one can lead in one’s community even at a very young age.  He shared funny, self-deprecating stories, and inspired everyone with his passion for the law and for creating a life with meaning. His story is terrific and he delivers it with flair.  I hope to have to Jamil speak at future orientation programs.

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