Maryland law professor to head NAACP Legal Defense & Education Fund

Sherrilyn Ifill, a professor at the University of Maryland’s law school, has been named president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense & Education Fund, one of the nation’s premier civil rights organizations.

The move is a homecoming for Ifill, who handled voting rights cases as assistant counsel for the fund before joining the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law faculty in 1993.

Ifill has taught courses in civil rights law, civil procedure and constitutional…