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American Civil Liberties Union President Deborah N. Archer delivered a grim assessment of the state of civil rights protections on Friday at a Phillips Brooks House Association event honoring her with the annual Robert Coles “Call of Service” award.

Archer told a crowd at the First Parish Church in Cambridge that she no longer considers the federal government to be a reliable partner in protecting civil liberties, encouraging local and “outside of the box” pathways to justice.

“The thing that hurts my soul often the most is the way that we are seeing the dismantling of the infrastructure of equality, the infrastructure of civil rights itself,” she said.

Archer, who is also a clinical law professor at New York University’s School of Law, is the first person of color to lead the ACLU. Her scholarship explores how laws and policies that present as racially neutral may reinforce systemic inequality and exclusion in the United States.

She is the 19th recipient of the “Call of Service” award, which honors individuals who model exemplary commitments to public service and social activism. The award commemorates Robert Coles ’50, a PBHA alumnus and Harvard professor known for his staunch civil rights advocacy as a child psychiatrist and author.

The ceremony began with a performance by the Kuumba Singers of Harvard College. Massachusetts ACLU Executive Director Carol V. Rose, also a 1996 Harvard Law School graduate, opened the ceremony with praise for Archer’s 30-year career.

“Professor Archer has invited us all to see that justice is not abstract, but it’s a daily practice of care, of accountability, and of persistence,” Rose said.

After receiving her award, Archer joined PBHA executive officers Alex Fernand ’26 and Melanie Garcia ’27 in discussion about the changing landscape of civil liberties in the U.S. Archer said legal shifts that have restricted civil rights in the last decade present the greatest current obstacle to racial equality.

“The tools that we have used to get us to this point are gone. They are being dismantled by the courts and being dismantled by the administration,” Archer said, referring to civil rights laws now interpreted to restrict affirmative action and other protections for minority groups.

“I think about how we’re going to think about different ways to do this work without a federal government,” she added.

Archer argued that changes to the Department of Education have been especially damaging for civil liberties.

When President Donald Trump signed an executive order in March to shut down the Department of Education, the government laid off lawyers responsible for enforcing policies preventing racial bias, sex discrimination, and protecting students with disabilities.

“We relied on the federal government to do the work, to use the big club that it had to force schools to integrate, to force schools to take care of the most vulnerable children, to force the schools to provide special education services, to force schools to protect LGBTQ students who were being harassed and bullied, to protect students against racial harassment,” she said. “We don’t have those tools anymore.”

Archer added that social justice leaders must develop “outside the box” tools to advance racial justice, suggesting antitrust laws provide new avenues if racial segregation can be challenged as an issue of monopolization in courts.

During a question-and-answer session at the end of the event, Archer called on Harvard students to avoid being overwhelmed by injustice and to look for opportunities within their means to take action.

“Don’t make the inability to do everything stop you from doing anything,” Archer said. “Just do something. You all have power and influence. You have influence as students, as employees, in your families.”

“The small changes that we can make will come together, they will ripple outwards, and they will build momentum,” she added.