Brandi Collins-Dexter is currently a visiting fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy. As part of her fellowship work, she researches, writes, and presents on issues that are core to Black participation in democracy and the US economy, with particular focus on the role technology and information integrity play in improving or deteriorating community health.
Previously, Brandi served as Senior Campaign Director of Color Of Change’s Media, Culture, and Economic Justice department. At Color Of Change, she led a number of successful campaigns for accountability including getting Fox’s The O’Reilly Factor taken off the air; getting R. Kelly dropped from RCA; fighting for national and state net neutrality and privacy protections; pressuring financial companies to pull funding from over 100 hate groups; and persuading Disney not to Whitewash the features of their character Princess Tiana. She has testified in front of Congress on issues related to privacy, disinformation and economic justice and also was one of the prominent leaders involved with persuading Facebook to undergo a civil rights audit to address the platform’s negative impact on marginalized communities, as well as helping to drive one of the largest advertiser boycotts in history, also targeted at Facebook.
She came to Color Of Change from MediaJustice where she worked on similar issues. Before that, Brandi worked at Safer Foundation in Illinois, creating state and national recommendations on job opportunities and reentry for people leaving prison. Brandi holds a B.A. in history from Agnes Scott College, and a J.D. from University of Wisconsin-Madison Law School.
Brandi is a regular commentator in the media on racial justice. The Hill named her a 2017 “person to watch.” In 2019, she was listed in The Root 100, an annual list of the most influential African Americans, ages 25 to 45. In 2020 she received an EPIC Champion of Freedom award from the Electronic Privacy Information Center, for her work on data privacy protections.