Kathy Purnell

Kathy Purnell, J.D., Ph.D. is the Director and Managing Attorney of the Human/Civil Rights Law Center. She is a licensed attorney in the State of Michigan (since 2008), and the Pro Bono Chair of the Michigan Chapter of the American Immigration Lawyers Association. Throughout her career, she has worked as an attorney, fellow or advocate for many human rights agencies and initiatives including Justice for Our Neighbors-Michigan, Immigration Legal Services for Afghan Arrivals (ILSAA), the Fair Housing Center of Southwest Michigan, Legal Aid of Western Michigan, and the International Human Rights Law Institute (DePaul University). 

Purnell has taught as a professor in the fields of political theory, First Year Experience, immigration law and policy, administrative law, and nonprofit governance, and has over a decade of experience working as a university administrator. An avid advocate and seeker of new ways to engage with others to strengthen democracy and build inclusive community, she has led “Resilience Retreats” incorporating philosophy at the GilChrist Center of the Fetzer Institute (since 2018), is an advisory board member and practitioner (since 2020) of Racial Healing through the Michigan Transformation Collective, an Advisory Board member of the Western Michigan University Center for the Study of Ethics in Society (since August 2016), and is a certified affiliate (since 2017) of the American Philosophical Practitioners Association (APPA). She is also an elected public official (serves as a Trustee for Kalamazoo Valley Community College) and is the co-Chair of the League of Women Voters Kalamazoo Federal Judiciary Study. She has previously served on many other community boards including the YWCA of Kalamazoo, The Kalamazoo Defender, the Kalamazoo Gay and Lesbian Resource Center (now OutFront), and the WMU Center for the Humanities. She served on the Ethics Center’s Advisory Board from 2016-2025.

She is a graduate of Harvard University (A.B.), Cornell University (Ph.D.) and the DePaul University College of Law (J.D.)