Kumiki Gibson

Who is Kumiki Gibson?

Kumiki Gibson is a lawyer of Japanese and African-American descent, originally from Buffalo, New York. She was previously the Chief Counsel to 45th Vice President of the United States Al Gore and formerly the Vice President and General Counsel of Johns Hopkins University.

Prior to serving as a State executive, Gibson served as Senior Vice President of Administration and Governance, Chief Governance Officer, and Counselor to the President of the National Urban League, where she oversaw the development of a new strategy to advance the mission of this well-established civil rights organization. She was also a litigation partner at Williams & Connolly, the prestigious Washington, D.C. law firm, whose partners include Brendan Sullivan, David Kendall, and Greg Craig. During the Clinton Administration, she served as legal counsel to Vice President Al Gore from 1994 to 1997, replacing Gore's long-time aide, Todd J. Campbell. She started her trial career at the United States Department of Justice, where she prosecuted Federal civil rights cases, including racial and ethnic hate crimes.

Gibson has served in a variety of positions in the private, not-for-profit, and public sectors, most recently as the Commissioner of the New York State Division of Human Rights, the State agency charged with enforcing the State's Human Rights Law. She was appointed to that post in January 2007 by then newly elected Governor Eliot Spitzer and confirmed unanimously by the New York State Senate several months later. During her tenure as Commissioner, Gibson revamped the State agency, reducing backlogs and making it more effective in fighting systematic forms of discrimination. After Spitzer resigned from office in March 2008, Gibson tendered her resignation and left her post in April 2008. Several newspapers reported that she was sued by certain former employees, after they left the agency, based on their non-gay sexual orientation and race, but public records show that there were only three suits and all of those were dismissed.