Salmah Y. Rizvi is the Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer of the American Civil Liberties Union of Hawaiʻi. An appellate litigator, community organizer, and crisis manager, Rizvi works to build lasting peace that safeguards civil rights by seeking truth, justice, and healing.
Her civil rights litigation, research, and advocacy have centered on houseless rights, prison monitorship, reentry programs, mandatory minimums, religious freedom, LGBTQIA+ rights, free speech, freedom of assembly, reproductive rights, racial justice, human rights, Native Hawaiian rights, and immigration. Rizvi served as pro bono Counsel to the ACLU of Maryland, interned with NYCLU, and externed at the U.S. Department of Justice.
Rizvi founded the American Muslim Bar Association and was a Board Director for Witness to Mass Incarceration. She worked at Ropes & Gray LLP and clerked for Judge Theodore A. McKee of the U.S. Court of Appeals and Judge J. Michael Seabright of the U.S. District Court of Hawai‘i.
Before law school, Rizvi supported high-value missions for the U.S. Departments of State and Defense for nearly a decade, earning honors from Members of Congress and the U.S. President’s office. She was also a Human Rights Commissioner in Maryland.
Rizvi, a child of immigrants, holds a J.D. from NYU School of Law, an M.S. from Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service, and a B.A. in Anthropology from Johns Hopkins. She is a Soros Fellow, Vanderbilt Medalist, and Truman Scholar.
Rizvi lives in Honolulu with her husband, Professor Saquib Ali Usman, and their children, organizing programs for the Zawiyah Foundation of Hawai‘i in her free time.