Dean Melanie Leslie has announced that former Obama Deputy Attorney General for Civil Rights Vanita Gupta will be the graduation speaker at the Cardozo School of Law 2017 commencement, which will take place on May 24th at 6 p.m. at David Geffen Hall in New York City's Lincoln Center.
Gupta was appointed by President Obama to head the U.S. Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division in October 2014, and she served in that role through January 2017. Her tenure has been widely noted for strong leadership in advancing constitutional policing and criminal justice reform; prosecuting hate crimes and human trafficking, promoting disability rights; protecting the rights of LGBTQ individuals; and ensuring voting rights for all. Other issues she spearheaded include combating discrimination in education, housing, employment, lending, and religious excercise. She oversaw federal investigations of the Ferguson, MO., Baltimore, and Chicago police deparments, as well as the successful appeals of the Texas and North Carolina voter ID cases.
In March of 2017 she became President and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, an umbrella organization of civil rights groups from across the country. Formerly, she was a civil rights lawyer and the Deputy Legal Director of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), where she oversaw national criminal justice reform efforts. Prior to that, she was Assistant Counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.
Vanita Gupta is a national leader in civil rights advocacy, litigation and public policy.
