Division of Institutional Equity and Diversity

Don Lemon, Award Winning Journalist and Veteran CNN Anchor

Award-Winning Journalist and Veteran CNN Anchor Don Lemon anchors CNN Newsroom during weekend prime-time and serves as a correspondent across CNN/U.S. programming. Based in the network's world headquarters in Atlanta, Lemon joined CNN in September 2006. This year, Ebony named him as one of the “Ebony Power 150: the most influential blacks in America.”

A news veteran of Chicago, Lemon reported from Chicago in the days leading up to the 2008 presidential election; and included an interview with then-Rep. Rahm Emanuel on the day he accepted the position of Chief of Staff for President-elect Barack Obama. He also interviewed Anne Cooper, the 106-year old voter President-elect Obama highlighted in his election night acceptance speech after he had seen Lemon’s interview with Cooper on CNN.

Lemon has covered many breaking news stories, including the Inaugural of the 44th President in Washington, D.C., Hurricane Gustav in Louisiana (2008), the Minneapolis bridge collapse (2007), the explosion of Space Shuttle Columbia, SARS in Canada and numerous other stories of national and global importance.

Lemon serves as an adjunct professor at Brooklyn College, teaching and participating in curriculum designed around new media. He has won an Edward R. Murrow award for his coverage of the capture of the Washington, D.C. snipers.

He won an Emmy for a special report on real estate in Chicagoland and various other awards for his reporting on the AIDS epidemic in Africa and Hurricane Katrina. In 2006, he won three more local Emmys for his reporting in Africa and a business feature about Craigslist, an online community.

Cuc Vu, Chief Diversity Officer for the Human Rights Campaign

Cuc Vu is the Chief Diversity Officer for the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the nation's largest civil rights organization working to ensure equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people. Vu provides the vision and strategy to help HRC fulfill its stated commitment to diversity and inclusion at every level of the organization. Cuc Vu has many accomplishments including: launching a new HRC Women & Leadership program, convened a Diversity & Inclusion Council, and initiated a ground-breaking program called Equality Forward.

Vu is now exploring the creation of a first-ever leadership training program to develop a new cadre of straight allies and LGBT people of color advocates with the language and cultural competency to bridge the LGBT and people of color communities. Vu worked for more than 10 years in the labor movement at AFL-CIO and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) as an advocate for women, immigrants and workers. Vu is still deeply connected to the immigrant community. She serves as a founding member and President of the Mi Familia Vota Education Fund and is a founding board member of the Civic Participation Campaign.

Valeisha Butterfield – Jones, National Youth Vote Director for the Obama for America Campaign and as the Co-founder and Chair of the Women in Entertainment Empowerment Network (WEEN)

Valeisha Butterfield – Jones is an award-winning political strategist, women’s activist and pop culture expert. Butterfield-Jones currently serves as the National Youth Vote Director for the Obama for America Campaign and as the Co-founder and Chair of the Women in Entertainment Empowerment Network (WEEN). Butterfield-Jones has been recognized by ESSENCE Magazine as a top 40 executive under 40 years of age, by TheRoot.com as a top 100 African American influencer, Glamour Magazine and more.

Butterfield-Jones began her career as the Executive Director of Russell Simmons’ Hip-Hop Summit Action Network (HSAN) and continued as the National Director of Diversity for the Alzheimer’s Association and served in the Obama Administration as the Deputy Director of Public Affairs for the International Trade Administration at the U.S. Department of Commerce.

Butterfield-Jones has been featured by Black Entertainment Television, AOL’s Black Voices, USA Today, ABC News, NBC News, Black Enterprise and other major news programs and publications. Butterfield – Jones was born in Wilson, NC and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science from Clark Atlanta University. Butterfield-Jones is married to Dahntay Jones of the Dallas Mavericks and gave birth to the couple’s first child in 2012. She is the daughter of U.S. Congressman G. K Butterfield and N.C. Legislator Jean Farmer Butterfield. Follow Butterfield – Jones on Twitter at @valeisha