Erin E. Wilson

Erin Wilson serves as our Senior Director for Democracy Protection. Immediately before joining Human Rights First, she served as the Director the National Association of Attorneys General (NAAG) Presidential Initiative, The People v. Hate: Standing Up for Humanity, on behalf of the 2021 NAAG President, D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine. The initiative focused on addressing acute forms of hate, such as hate crimes, and the legacy of hate that permeates our institutions and continues to perpetuate injustice. She also served as the Attorney General’s Senior Policy Advisor on issues related to social and racial justice, hate, and domestic extremism.

Prior to joining the Washington D.C. Office of the Attorney General, Ms. Wilson spent nearly twenty years in the federal government executive and legislative branches—Capitol Hill, the National Counterterrorism Center, State, a DHS Task Force, and the Department of Defense—developing strategy, policy, and programs to prevent hate and domestic extremism, and to promote social justice.

For instance, in 2019 she was a Brookings Legislative Fellow and Senior Policy Advisor in the Senate, where she furthered legislation to improve social justice, prevent hate, and counter violent white supremacy. While serving at the National Counterterrorism Center as a Senior Policy Strategist in 2017, she successfully built a coalition of executive branch personnel to ensure that white supremacy was included in a national security strategy for the first time in our nation’s history.

Over her career, Ms. Wilson has established herself as a leading expert on counter hate and domestic extremism policy and programs. She boasts an extensive track record of building and leading diverse coalitions including community stakeholders and federal, state, and local law enforcement and military partners to design and implement strategies, policies, and programs to counter hate and extremism, while promoting civil rights.

Ms. Wilson earned her master’s degree in Comparative Politics and Conflict Studies, with an emphasis on extremism, from the London School of Economics. She received her bachelor’s degree in International Relations from Michigan State University.