Portia Allen-Kyle

Portia is an Advocacy and Policy Counsel for the Campaign for Smart Justice at the American Civil Liberties Union, where she focuses on pretrial justice and bail reform, in addition to being tasked with developing a strategy to challenge racism in the criminal legal system. She first joined the ACLU family as the Pratt Criminal Justice Transparency Fellow at the ACLU of New Jersey in 2016. In that capacity she advocated for data transparency, constitutional policing, and authored reports on juvenile diversion programs and the school-to-prison pipeline. She also previously served as the Policy Director of the ACLU of Alabama, where she led the affiliate’s non-litigation advocacy.

Prior to joining the ACLU, Portia served as an instructor at St. Thomas Aquinas College and at Rutgers University where she taught numerous courses on criminology, sociology, and race. She is passionate about public service, currently serving on the Board of Trustees of the Urban Resource Institute, which provides comprehensive human services programs to empower individuals and families in the New York metropolitan area experiencing domestic violence and homelessness to improve their lives. Portia previously served as an inaugural member of the Civilian Complaint Review Board of Newark, New Jersey.

Portia received her B.A. from Wellesley College, an M.A. from Columbia University, an M.A. in Sociology from Rutgers University and a J.D. from Rutgers University School of Law-Newark. She is passionate about racial justice, experiences of law, policing, and social control, and has presented at a number of national conferences and community forums on these topics.