School of Education

School of Education alum Dennis Hayes to keynote Groups reunion banquet

NAACP leader returns a couple weeks after receiving School of Education honor

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Dennis Hayes, senior vice president and previously the interim president and chief executive officer of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, will be the keynote speaker at the 40th anniversary reunion and awards banquet for Indiana University's Groups Student Support program.

A native of Indianapolis, Hayes received a B.S. from the IU School of Education in 1974. The School honored Hayes with a Distinguished Alumni Award on October 3. Hayes also earned a jurist doctorate from the IU School of Law -- Indianapolis in 1977.

Registration for the reunion is required to attend the dinner, which begins at 7 p.m. on Oct. 25 in Alumni Hall of the Indiana Memorial Union, 900 E. Seventh St. More information is available at www.alumni.iu.edu/gaa.

Hayes serves as senior vice president of the NAACP. As interim president and CEO, he oversaw the NAACP's national programs as well as its 2,200 units across the United States and abroad. These units represent approximately 400,000 members in adult branches, college chapters and youth councils in the United States, Europe, Japan and Korea.

From his private practice of law in Indianapolis, where he specialized in civil rights litigation, the NAACP recruited him in 1985 as an associate in its New York headquarters' legal department. In 1990, they selected him to serve as the national office's chief legal officer.

Hayes has devoted a lifelong commitment to public interest causes. In addition to his duties at the NAACP, he contributes his talents to board and committee responsibilities for the American Judicature Society, the Public Justice Center of Baltimore and the Columbia Sportsmen's Association in Maryland. He is a contributing author of publications, ranging from magazine articles to civil rights training materials.

IU's Groups Student Support program, which began in 1968, is a federally funded program designed to assist first-generation students with limited financial resources and people with disabilities from all racial and economic backgrounds. Hayes is an alumnus of the program.