Elliott Dawes

Elliott Dawes was appointed Executive Chief Diversity Officer in August 2021. From 2016 to 2021, he was the CDO for Institutional Equity and Inclusion at SUNY Empire State College. Prior to that, Dawes served as the university director of The City University of New York Black Male Initiative (CUNY BMI) and assistant dean for Multicultural Affairs at the Hofstra University School of Law. He has experience as a lawyer and educator, including as a trial attorney, Educational Opportunities Litigation Section, Civil Rights Division, U.S. Department of Justice, and an associate professor, African American Studies, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY.

Dawes holds an LLM from Columbia Law School, a BA in Government and Africana Studies from Cornell University, and a JD from the New York University School of Law.