President Linda Mills promoted an NYU professor and administrator to spearhead legal initiatives at NYU in the wake of an “increasingly complex and challenging legal environment,” she announced in a Tuesday memo.
Trevor Morrison, a professor and former dean at NYU School of Law, reports to Mills as the “university’s senior-most legal strategist.” In the inaugural position, Morrison will serve as the university’s chief legal officer and senior presidential advisor for policy relating to ethics, risk, compliance and institutional integrity.
Mathew Varughese, who served as interim and deputy general counsel, as well as interim chief of staff to Mills, now reports directly to Morrison as the general counsel and university secretary. In the role, he will continue to oversee the Office of General Counsel — which provides legal advice to university leaders — while also serving as secretary to NYU’s board of trustees.
“He is well-known to all of you for his stalwart leadership of OGC over these past several months, his responsiveness as a colleague, and his support for the many issues that have surfaced over this period,” Mills said in the memo. “His contributions to our institutional decision-making, especially in challenging circumstances, have been immense.”
Over the past several months, universities have been wracked by legal threats echoing U.S. President Donald Trump’s efforts to upend higher education. NYU was named one of 10 colleges to be investigated for antisemitism and one of 52 colleges probed for its diversity programming. However, the university has yet to receive public scrutiny from the Trump administration the way its peer institutions have.
Morrison, who will continue to work as a constitutional law professor at NYU Law, published multiple essays in February iterating concerns over Trump’s relationship with the courts. He also recently criticized federal efforts to end birthright citizenship, as well as Trump’s TikTok ban and border policy.
Before his tenure as dean of NYU Law from 2013 to 2022, Morrison was an associate professor at Cornell Law School and a professor at Columbia Law School. He also served as the associate counsel to former President Barack Obama in 2009 and clerked for former Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg from 2002 to 2003.
Varughese previously served as a legal strategist in health and research-related positions, including at Yale University. He joined NYU in 2021, and Mills praised his “deep familiarity” with the institution.
NYU has been the subject of multiple lawsuits related to antisemitism and data security in recent years. In November 2023, a group of Jewish students claimed the university ignored antisemitic acts following a surge in protests against the war in Gaza. The university reached a confidential settlement with the students as a result, which included the appointment of NYU’s inaugural Title VI coordinator — the first appointment of its kind across American universities.
This year, NYU also faced more than 10 class action lawsuits after over 3 million applicants’ data — including their names, test scores, majors and zip codes — was displayed on NYU’s homepage.
“I am so pleased to announce the appointment of Mathew C. Varughese as general counsel and secretary to the board of trustees and Trevor Morrison as chief legal officer and senior presidential advisor for institutional policy, thereby ensuring excellent legal and strategic counsel and superb leadership of our legal team,” Mills said in Tuesday’s memo.
Contact Kaitlyn Sze Tu at [email protected].