Vanita Gupta
, acting assistant attorney general for civil rights for the United States Department of Justice, will speak Tuesday, March 17, at a community forum presented by the DOJ and the University of Alabama at Birmingham College of Arts and Sciences’ Institute for Human Rights.
Gupta will discuss recent civil rights events and the Department of Justice’s outreach program to defend and protect the civil liberties and rights of minorities and immigrant communities. As the highest-ranking civil rights officer in the DOJ, Gupta will offer her perspective and ideas on civil rights issues. A question-and-answer session will follow.
The forum will take place from 1-2:30 p.m. in the Abroms-Engel Institute for the Visual Arts, 1221 10th Ave. South. The event is open to the public; seating is limited. Parking is available in UAB Lot 15D, directly behind the AEIVA.
Prior to assuming her DOJ role in October 2014, Gupta served as deputy legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union and director of its Center for Justice, which houses the organization’s criminal justice reform work. While managing a robust litigation docket, Gupta also worked with law enforcement, with departments of corrections and across the political spectrum to advance evidence-based reforms to increase public safety by promoting greater fairness and trust in the U.S. criminal justice system.
Gupta was for several years an adjunct clinical professor at New York University School of Law, where she taught and oversaw a civil rights litigation clinic.
From 2006-2010, she was a staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union Racial Justice Program and focused on criminal justice reform, immigration and education litigation. She won a landmark settlement on behalf of immigrant children detained in a privately run prison in Texas that led to the end of “family detention” at the facility.
Prior to joining the American Civil Liberties Union, Gupta was at the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Legal Defense Fund, where she successfully led the effort to overturn the wrongful drug convictions of 38 individuals in Tulia, Texas, who ultimately were pardoned by then-Governor Rick Perry.
Gupta has won many awards for her advocacy and has been quoted extensively in national and international media on civil rights issues. In 2011, the National Law Journal recognized her as a Top 40 Minority Lawyer Under 40. She is a magna cum laude graduate of Yale University and received her law degree from NYU School of Law.