About Laura W. Murphy

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Photo Credit: Greg "Fritz" Blakey

Laura W. Murphy, president of Laura Murphy & Associates, is a seasoned civil rights and civil liberties leader who has used her advocacy skills to help businesses eliminate discriminatory policies, practices and products in their operations. She pioneered the process for conducting civil rights audits of companies with her groundbreaking audit of Airbnb in 2016 and her widely reported audit of Facebook in 2020. Murphy recently authored a report, “The Rationale for and Key Elements of a Business Civil Rights Audit” that is endorsed by the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and made possible by the financial support of The Ford Foundation. That report was developed in consultation with over 30 civil rights, worker rights and shareholder advocacy organizations. During her 17 years as the first woman and first African American to lead the ACLU Washington Legislative Office, Murphy cultivated a reputation for building effective bipartisan coalitions and being a champion for justice and equity. She was instrumental in the passage of laws on free speech, criminal justice reform, national security, reproductive rights, LGBTQ and civil rights, and internet privacy, testifying more than a dozen times before Congress. She was recently profiled in Businessweek, and is the recipient of numerous awards for her social justice leadership.