Targeted by Hate Groups/Fighting Back

Taylor A. Dumpson, J.D., is a nationally recognized anti-hate advocate and 2021 President’s Fellow at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.

In 2017, while pursuing her bachelor of arts degree at American University, Ms. Dumpson became the first Black woman to serve as president of the student government in the university’s 124-year history. In the wake of her ground-breaking election, she was the target of a racially motivated hate crime on her first day in office, followed by cyber-harassment by members of white supremacist groups.  She fought back by pursuing litigation against the Neo-Nazis who cyber-harassed her. And she won. Not only did Ms. Dumpson receive a favorable judgment in the case, but she also reached a landmark settlement with one of the defendants based on principles of restorative justice.

Today, Ms. Dumpson continues to raise awareness on the impact hate and discrimination have on our communities, and ways to actively combat it. Ms. Dumpson has shared this message by testifying before Congress and giving a TEDx Talk, and in interviews with various print, television, and radio broadcast media such as CNN, NBC, MSNBC, The Washington Post, The New York Times, WTOP, and WAMU.

Her story has been featured in American Hate: Survivors Speak Out, an NPR Best Book of 2018, and in “15 Minutes of Shame” the 2021 documentary produced by Monica Lewinsky and Max Joseph, which examines the social behavior of cyber-harassment.