Lateefah Simon


Lateefah Simon is the president of the and an advocate for civil rights, racial justice, and juvenile justice. In 2003, she became the youngest woman to receive a MacArthur Fellowship, for her leadership of the Center for Young Women's Development from age 19.
Under San Francisco district attorney Kamala Harris, Simon led the creation of San Francisco's , with Back on Track, an advocacy program for young adults charged with low-level felony drug sales.
Simon has been the executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area and the program director of the Rosenberg Foundation.
In 2016, Simon was appointed to the California State University Board of Trustees by Governor Jerry Brown.
Simon was elected to represent the seventh district on the Bay Area Rapid Transit District board of directors in 2016. Her motivations for running included her reliance on BART, as someone who is legally blind and unable to drive. For the year 2020, she was elected President of BART's board of directors.
Simon studied social entrepreneurship at Stanford University and public policy at Mills College, where she was the 2017 Commencement speaker.
She is the mother of two children and has written about the difference in how she was treated as an unwed mother and as a widowed mother. Simon's late husband, Kevin Weston, was a recognized journalist and activist who died from leukemia in 2014.

Awards