Mr. Williams is the principal of Junious Williams Consulting Inc. (JWC), a firm specializing in research, policy analysis, collaboration facilitation, program development, and assessment focused on increasing equity and social justice. He has worked extensively over the past 25 years on a variety of multi-stakeholder, multi-sector collaborations and collective impact initiatives providing guidance and support in design, implementation, facilitation, management, and program improvement for initiatives spanning issues from full-service community schools to cradle-to-career pathways; from opportunity youth education and employment to improving outcomes for boys and men of color. He holds a Juris Doctorate in law and a Bachelor’s degree in sociology from the University of Michigan, where he also pursued graduate studies in education administration.
From 1998 through 2016, Mr. Williams served as president and CEO of Urban Strategies Council, a social justice impact organization in Oakland, California. In addition to private law practice, his career includes: founding and directing the Saginaw Student Rights Center and co-founding the Ann Arbor Student Advocacy Center; work on school desegregation, disparate student discipline, and education equity as associate director of the Programs for Educational Opportunity at the University of Michigan School of Education; associate professor of ethnic studies at CSU, Fresno; executive director of student attendance and discipline for the Detroit Public Schools; and assistant compliance monitor for a federal consent decree on employment discrimination in the building trades. He has worked on community-building initiatives, education and criminal justice reform, improving outcomes for boys and men of color, and workforce and economic development efforts including negotiating landmark community benefits agreements on major development projects in Oakland and San Francisco. He is co-founder and board chair of the Oakland Community Land Trust and board chair of the Center for Law and Education.
