Sundeep Iyer is the Director of the New Jersey Division on Civil Rights. He oversees the state agency charged with protecting the civil rights of all New Jerseyans. Since his appointment as Director in January 2023, Sundeep has transformed the Division, spearheading the dramatic expansion of the Division’s strategic enforcement efforts. Under his leadership, the Division has initiated major systemic investigations and enforcement actions to combat housing discrimination, hold institutions of public trust accountable for violating civil rights laws, and protect students from discrimination in school. Sundeep has also expanded the Division’s enforcement, policy, outreach, and public education efforts to combat bias and hate across New Jersey.
Sundeep previously served as Assistant Attorney General and Senior Counsel to Attorney General Matthew J. Platkin. In that capacity, he was the Attorney General’s principal advisor on civil rights matters and coordinated department-wide civil rights initiatives. He also worked with the Office of the Solicitor General on appeals involving matters of constitutional law, statutory interpretation, civil rights, and criminal law.
Prior to joining the Office of the Attorney General, Sundeep was a senior associate at Hogan Lovells US LLP. During his time at the firm, he served as a special attorney for the State of Minnesota in the prosecution of the four former police officers charged in connection with the death of George Floyd. He was part of the legal team that obtained a conviction of Derek Chauvin on charges of second-degree murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter, and he briefed, argued, and won key legal motions for the State at trial. Sundeep was also part of the litigation team that obtained an injunction against President Trump’s travel ban and defended that injunction before the U.S. Supreme Court. He represented federal death-row inmates in a challenge to the Trump Administration’s federal lethal injection protocol. And he was one of the lead attorneys for a group of eight plaintiff organizations challenging President Trump’s rescission of the Bears Ears National Monument in Utah.
Sundeep previously clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justices David H. Souter and Stephen G. Breyer, as well as for then-Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. He received his A.B. from Harvard College and J.D. from Yale Law School. Prior to graduating law school, Sundeep was the Principal Quantitative Analyst at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law, where he directed statistical research on voting rights, campaign finance, and redistricting issues.
Born in New Jersey, Sundeep is the son of Indian immigrants who came to America in the 1970s in search of a better life, leaving behind families they felt duty-bound to support.
