Juan Cartagena, is a civil rights attorney, a Lecturer in Law at Columbia Law School, and a writer that addresses the struggle and importance of civil rights and nondiscriminatory treatment for Puerto Rican and Latino communities in the U.S. Mr. Cartagena is the former President & General Counsel of LatinoJustice PRLDEF and has used the law to effectuate systems change for the benefit of marginalized communities all over the country. He has litigated civil rights claims against excessive and abusive police departments in New York City and Suffolk County, vote-denial and vote-dilution claims in multiple states, testified in legislative hearings on the Voting Rights Act, on marijuana legalization, and on the elimination of employment discrimination against justice-impacted persons, and led national efforts to elevate criminal justice reform as a Latinx issue.
Juan has taught civil rights and constitutional law at Columbia Law School, Rutgers Law School–Newark, University of Pennsylvania Law School, and la Universidad Interamericana de Puerto Rico, Facultad de Derecho. He also taught law to undergraduate students at Rutgers University–New Brunswick, City College of New York, St. Peter’s College, and Hunter College in New York
In 2017 Mr. Cartagena wrote “Latinos y el Nuevo Jim Crow: Desenmarañando Convergencias” the introduction to the Spanish translation of Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow, titled El Color de la Justicia. His other publications include chapters in Latinos in New York: Communities in Transition, Behind Bars: Latinos/as and Prison in the United States, and ESL in America: Myths and Possibilities and entries in Latinos and Criminal Justice: An Encyclopedia. His law journal articles have been published by National Black Law Journal, Rutgers Race and the Law Review, University of Southern California Review of Law & Social Justice, and the International Review of Contemporary Law. Juan also has over 150 opinion placements in El Diario – La Prensa, The Huffington Post, National Institute for Latino Policy, Newsday, Gotham Gazette, among others, on matters involving voting rights, criminal justice, immigrants’ rights, English Only, civil rights and other issues.
A graduate of Dartmouth College and Columbia University School of Law, Mr. Cartagena is also a cultural bearer who has been performing, teaching, researching and writing about Afro-Puerto Rican Plena and Bomba drum and dance traditions within the Puerto Rican diaspora for over 35 years. He is the Executive Director of the Segunda Quimbamba Folkloric Center in Jersey City and the musical director of its ensemble, Segunda Quimbamba.