Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights (RFK Center)

Activities

The Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights explicitly grounds all of its legal activism in a “pursuit of racial and economic equality,” and hosts educational and leadership development programs to further this end. ²

The RFK Center has formed partnerships with a number of organizations, mainly litigation groups, to both bring “visibility to grassroots initiatives” and build “public demand for reform where it’s needed most.” ³

As of October 2023, its partners have included Abogadas y Abogados Para La Justicia y Los Derechos Humanos, an indigenous women’s rights group; Advancement Project, a civil rights group; American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), one of the largest civil rights groups in the nation; American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the second-largest teachers union in the nation; Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI), a left-of-center advocacy group; Center for Health and Gender Equity, an advocacy group that the RFK Center joined in suing the Trump administration; Civic Works, a Baltimore-based human rights education group; Civil Rights Corps, a litigation from that aims to empower “communities to change the unjust legal system”; Freedom for Immigrants, an immigration advocacy group; Haitian Bridge Alliance, a litigation group that fights discrimination against Black migrants; March for Our Lives, an anti-gun rights group; National Bail Fund Network, a criminal justice reform group and bail fund; and Southern Poverty Law Center, a controversial left-of-center “hate group” watchdog. ⁴

In November 2024, the RFK Center was one of 193 organizations to sign a letter organized by immigration activist group Detention Watch Network (DWN) and sent to President Joe Biden and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. The letter advocated for the Biden Administration to “close [immigration] detention facilities,” “halt all detention expansion efforts,” and, “release people from detention.” ⁵ The letter further alleges the Administration must, “…take all possible action to prevent the incoming administration from being able to easily expand detention capacity, including by pressuring Congress to pass a reduced appropriation for immigration detention.”⁵

Financials

In 2021, Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights reported revenue of $7,527,165, expenses of $11,322,131, and net assets of $57,506,680. ⁶

Leadership

As of 2023, the president of the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights was Kerry Kennedy. She is a human rights activist and lawyer with a focus on women’s rights, indigenous land rights, ethnic violence, criminal justice reform, immigration impunity, and environmental justice. ⁷

Kennedy has chaired the board of Amnesty International USA and has sat on the boards of United States Institute of Peace, Human Rights First, Kailash Satyarthi Children’s Foundation, Laureate and Leaders, Nizami Ganjavi International Center, HealthEVillages, as well as the RFK Center’s international chapters. ⁷