Employment discrimination expert joins Tulane Law as a Forrester Fellow

Professor Daiquiri Steele joins Tulane Law from the University of Alabama School of Law, where she was Director of Diversity & Inclusion and an Assistant Professor in Residence teaching employment discrimination, legislation  and regulation,  as well as education law courses.

Steele currently teaches legal research and writing to first-year students at Tulane Law. She brings impressive national leadership experience with the American Bar Association (ABA) and substantial practice experience with the federal government. 

She is a staunch civil rights advocate, who has dedicated her career and service activities to the promotion of equity, diversity and inclusion, particularly in the fields of employment and education. Part of her role at Alabama Law included directing the law school’s diversity and inclusion efforts. Steele is devoted to increasing diversity within the legal profession, and has spent countless hours engaging in legal pipeline program work targeting students from middle school through college.

Prior to joining academia, Steele served as a Civil Rights Attorney with the U.S. Department of Education, where she provided legal counsel relating to federal investigations of discrimination involving the nation’s school districts, colleges, universities, and state educational agencies. Prior to to that, she worked for the U.S. Department of Labor, Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, where she assessed federal contractors’ compliance with employment discrimination laws.

Both her career path and her volunteer work illustrate her passion for advancing equal opportunity and diversity in the legal profession and beyond. Steele served as a member of the Alabama State Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and an appointed member of the ABA Commission on the Future of the Legal Profession and ABA Standing Committee on Public Education. She previously served as a Commissioner on the ABA Commission on Racial & Ethnic Diversity in the Profession and as Assembly Speaker/Chief Policy Officer for the ABA Young Lawyers Division (YLD). She is also a member of the National Bar Association, and a previous Co-Chair of the Georgia Association of Black Women Attorneys Government Attorneys Section. Her commitment to service has earned her several awards, including the Award of Achievement for Outstanding Service to the Profession by the State Bar of Georgia YLD and 2017 Star of the Year from the ABA YLD.

Steele has spoken nationally and internationally, having recently served as a guest lecturer at the University of Stellenbosch and the University of Cape Town law schools in South Africa. She has also presented at many national, state, and local conferences on a myriad of topics within the civil rights and anti-discrimination umbrellas. Her research area is anti-discrimination law, with a specific focus on retaliation and whistleblowing.