A Louisiana Legal Leader with Rutgers Roots

Alumna Alanah Odoms, one of five inaugural Torch Lighter Award recipients honored by the Institute for Women’s Leadership, grew up in New Jersey but is now leading ACLU efforts in Louisiana.

Alanah Odoms spent much of her childhood with cousins and friends in a Jersey City neighborhood where she says the prospects for a young Black kid weren’t especially promising. She says her “posse of fun, smart, cool, kind, creative, loving, industrious friends” gazed at the New York City skyline and dreamed of becoming doctors, lawyers, teachers, and engineers.

The reality, however, was different. “Many of my friends could not escape the perils of the inner city,” she says.

What Odoms, who earned a degree in political science from Rutgers College in 2002 and a juris doctorate from Rutgers Law School in Newark in 2008, says she didn’t understand as a child was that structural forces—like generational poverty, discriminatory policing, racial profiling, redlining, and educational inequality—were systemically working against the kids and families in her neighborhood. Fortunately, Odoms was blessed with the unwavering love and support of her parents, Larry and Evelyn Odoms, who, as the first in their families to graduate from college, instilled in her the importance of education and the responsibility to contribute meaningfully to her community. 

It was at Rutgers–New Brunswick that Odoms came to understand that bigger picture. As an undergraduate, she participated in life changing programming at the Institute for Women’s Leadership, a decision that would shape the course of her career. 

When Odoms first enrolled, she imagined a future in law or politics, but it was the institute that ignited her passion for community activism and equipped her with the leadership skills to turn that passion into action. Through the Institute for Women’s Leadership, she created a social action project focused on empowering high school girls through leadership education, and secured a paid internship at an investment bank on Wall Street. She introduced Congresswoman Pat Schroeder at an event. She attended talks from inspirational women, and was encouraged to read thought-provoking feminist scholarship by authors including Betty Friedan, Audre Lorde, and bell hooks, whose writing on race, gender, and feminism rooted in justice and love deeply inspired Odoms. Most importantly, she developed life-long friendships with fellow scholars at the institute including Janine Gianfredi DC’02 and Ingrid Dahl DC’02, GSNB’05.  She felt both intellectually challenged and personally nurtured.

"It’s one thing to talk about women in leadership,” Odoms says. “But it’s something entirely transformative to actually give women the skills and opportunities to claim those spaces. To open the door, clear the path, and hand her the keys to a future she hadn’t yet imagined. You can’t quantify the worth of unlocking a young woman’s potential, of helping her see not just the heights she can reach, but the waves of change she can ignite for her community.” 

Odoms in 2018 was named executive director of the Louisiana affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), becoming the first Black woman to hold that position, which she continues. On September 25, she will be honored as one of five inaugural recipients of the Torch Lighter Award, created by the institute, to honor “those who use their power, influence, expertise, and resources to empower others.”

A Career of Accomplishment in Louisiana 

After finishing her law degree at Rutgers, Odoms moved to New Orleans. (Her younger sister, La’ Nyia Odoms RC’06, GSE’07, followed her at Rutgers by four years, earning an undergraduate degree in mathematics and a master’s in education. La’Nyia went on to complete medical school in Tennessee, and is now a primary care physician who also calls New Orleans home.)

In New Orleans, Odoms first worked as an assistant district attorney and as an associate at a law firm, then spent five years as deputy general counsel for the Louisiana Supreme Court and special counsel to its chief justice. Her accomplishments included co-chairing a statewide effort to reduce incarceration of youth—the Juvenile Detention Alternative Initiative—and she served as special counsel to a bipartisan task force that helped create a historic package of criminal justice reforms which resulted in the release of four thousand people convicted of nonviolent offenses and saved the state more than $260 million. 

Since being named to the ACLU of Louisiana post six years ago, she has spearheaded a number of significant initiatives:

—A successful campaign to end Louisiana’s non-unanimous jury law, under which people charged with felonies could be convicted if only 10 of the 12 jurors agreed.

—The Justice Lab, which aims to combat racially motivated police misconduct—false arrest, excessive force, and unreasonable stops, among other actions. Odoms’ office has recruited 50 law firms to represent victims for free, and since 2020 the Justice Lab has successfully settled more than a dozen lawsuits.

—A “guaranteed income program” that provides $1,000 a month for one year to help victims of police violence get back on their feet, by paying down debts and accessing health care and other services. 
 
—Efforts to improve conditions for the more than 6,000 immigrants held in Louisiana detention centers, and well as a campaign to abolish the practice of detaining immigrants in privately run facilities, which often operate outside public oversight.

In June of this year, the ACLU of Louisiana filed suit to challenge a new Louisiana law requiring that the Ten Commandments be displayed in all public school classrooms. (Odoms calls the law “religious indoctrination.”) And, as the November election approaches, the organization is doing what Odoms calls “election protection” work—ensuring, for example, that polling places are open during advertised hours and that absentee ballots are properly counted.

In her spare time, Odoms hangs with her 10-year-old daughter (“the love of my life”) and teaches a high-intensity fitness class at a New Orleans gym. She’s also working on a book that elaborates on the theme of her life’s work: to bring, as she puts it, a measure of humanity, dignity, and empathy into the law. 

“If a law is truly rooted in love, could it love us first?” she asks. “How do we craft laws that are filled with grace, that affirm our humanity, protect the vulnerable, and repair harm, while holding compassion and accountability in equipoise?” 

Her plans for a book encapsulate Odoms’ career and her passion perfectly: Its working title is No Law Without Love.

For more information about the Torch Lighter Awards, visit the honoree announcement.