Broderick D. Johnson to serve as winter 2019 Towsley Policymaker in Residence

January 16, 2018

Broderick D. Johnson (JD '83) will join the Ford School as the winter 2019 Harry A. and Margaret D. Towsley Foundation Policymaker in Residence, teaching a course on "Lobbying and Mass Incarceration." He follows Dudley Benoit (MPP ‘95) who taught "Community Development Finance: Lessons from the Field" and Hardy Vieux (MPP/JD '97) who taught "The Role of Non-Governmental Organizations in Policy Formation."

Johnson served as assistant to the President and cabinet secretary during the Obama Administration, as chair of President Obama's national My Brother's Keeper Task Force, and as deputy assistant to the President for legislative affairs during the Clinton Administration. He is credited with drafting national legislation, including the Family and Medical Leave Act, as well as writing legislative policy and strategy on K-12, higher education, and labor and employment issues.

He currently serves as a partner at the international law firm Bryan Cave LLP and as chairman of the board of the My Brother’s Keeper Alliance, an outgrowth of the My Brother's Keeper Task Force that Johnson led during the Obama Administration.

During the summer of 2018, Johnson will also teach a three-session module for the Ford School's Public Policy and International Affairs (PPIA) Junior Summer Institute.

--By Olivia Lewis (MPP '18)


The Towsley Foundation Policymaker in Residence Program was established at the Ford School in 2002 to bring individuals with significant national and international policymaking experiences to campus to interact with students and faculty.