Human Rights Workshop: Chirag Badlani, “Arts Administration as a Human Rights Practice”

Lunch Provided / RSVP Required. Email the Schell Center to request background readings a week prior to talk.

Chirag Badlani is executive director of Alphawood Foundation Chicago, a private grant-making foundation dedicated to building a more equitable, just, and humane society. Since taking the helm in 2021, he has guided the Foundation’s support for organizations working across legal services, civil rights advocacy, LGBTQ+ rights, HIV/AIDS prevention, arts access, and preservation of the built environment, as well as its exhibitions program at Wrightwood 659. Before joining Alphawood, Badlani spent nearly a decade as an associate and then partner at Hughes Socol Piers Resnick & Dym, Ltd., where he represented clients in civil rights, immigration, and employment matters. Earlier in his career, he clerked for Judge Ann Claire Williams of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit and Judge Allyne R. Ross of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, and worked at the Vera Institute of Justice and in urban planning and community development at the New York City Economic Development Corporation. Badlani holds a J.D. from New York University School of Law and a B.A. in History from Yale University. He lives in the Chicago area.