Hardy Vieux | Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy
Hardy Vieux
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Visiting faculty

Hardy Vieux

Harry A. and Margaret D. Towsley Policymaker in Residence
(734) 615-7046 [email protected]

Hardy Vieux (MPP/JD ’97) is a Harry A. and Margaret D. Towsley Foundation Policymaker in Residence at the University of Michigan's Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy. Vieux serves as Kids in Need of Defense’s (KIND) chief of staff. In that role, he aligns vision, strategy, and tactics in an organization dedicated to addressing the legal and psychosocial needs of migrant children. Hardy endeavors to harness time, information, and decision processes to enable KIND to focus on zealously advocating for the rights of refugee and immigrant children.

Prior to joining KIND in May 2021, Hardy served as the senior vice president, legal, at Human Rights First, where he led the organization’s pro bono asylum representation team and its impact litigation efforts, having started that work in 2018.

In 2014, Hardy served as a policy fellow with Save the Children in Jordan, focusing on the problems of safeguarding and educating Syrian refugee children. Prior to living in the Middle East, he was in private legal practice focused on white collar criminal defense and complex civil trials. While in private practice, Hardy handled numerous pro bono matters, from litigation stemming from the abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq to juvenile detention impact litigation and asylum representation.

Before moving to private practice, Hardy was a criminal appellate defense counsel in the United States Navy’s Judge Advocate General’s Corps, where he served as counsel on a death penalty case and national security matters, among others. Since leaving the JAG Corps, Hardy has served on the board of the National Institute of Military Justice, a nonprofit dedicated to the fair administration of justice in the armed forces.

Hardy currently serves on the Ford School Committee, whose members provide volunteer fundraising and strategic guidance to the school. He is a 1997 graduate of the Ford School and the University of Michigan Law School, where he served as a co-founder and editor-in-chief of the Michigan Journal of Race & Law. He earned his Bachelor of Arts in public policy studies from Duke University, later serving on the board of visitors of the university’s public policy school.

Educational background

  • MPP/JD, University of Michigan
  • BA, Duke University

Professional affiliations

  • Board member, National Institute of Military Justice
  • Committee member, Ford School Committee