Civil rights lawyer, professor Lani Guinier dead at 71

By JESSICA GRESKO and GARY FIELDS
Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Lani Guinier, a civil rights lawyer and scholar whose nomination by President Bill Clinton to head the Justice Department’s civil rights division was pulled after conservatives criticized her views on correcting racial discrimination, has died. She was 71. Harvard Law School Dean John F. Manning says Guinier died Friday. Her cousin, Sherrie Russell-Brown, says the cause was complications due to Alzheimer’s disease. Guinier became the first woman of color appointed to a tenured professorship at Harvard Law when she joined the faculty in 1998.