Vanita Gupta

Vanita Gupta is an American civil rights attorney. She is the president and chief executive officer of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. From 2014 to 2017, she served as the principal deputy assistant attorney general and head of the Civil Rights Division at the U.S. Department of Justice, where she was the chief civil rights prosecutor for the United States.[2]

This article is about the civil rights attorney. For the businesswoman, see Vinita Gupta.
Vanita Gupta
United States Associate Attorney General
Designate
Assuming office
TBD
PresidentJoe Biden
SucceedingClaire McCusker Murray (acting)
United States Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights
In office
October 20, 2014 – January 20, 2017
PresidentBarack Obama
Preceded byMolly Moran
Succeeded byThomas Wheeler
Personal details
Born1974/1975 (age 45–46)[1]
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Spouse(s)Chinh Le
Children2
EducationYale University (BA)
New York University (JD)

Formerly, she was a civil rights lawyer and the deputy legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, where she oversaw its national criminal justice reform efforts.[3] She has also served as Assistant Counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. Throughout her career, she has drawn support from a wide range of liberal and conservative activists, as well as law enforcement leaders, for building collaborative support and finding common ground on policing and criminal justice reform.[4][5]

President Joe Biden has nominated Gupta to serve as Associate Attorney General.[6]

Early life

Gupta was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Indian immigrant parents.[1] She received her B.A. degree magna cum laude from Yale University.[7] She received her J.D. degree from New York University School of Law in 2001.[8]

Career

Her first case, while working for the LDF directly after law school, involved 40 African Americans and six white or Latino people who were romantic partners of African Americans in Tulia, Texas, who had been convicted by all-white juries on drug dealing charges.[9] In almost every case, the only evidence was the testimony of an undercover agent, Tom Coleman. Coleman did not use wiretaps or marked money and records showed that he had "filed shoddy reports."[10] He had previous misdemeanor charges for stealing gasoline from a county pump and abuse of official capacity.[10] Gupta won the release of her clients in 2003, four years after they were jailed, then negotiated a $6 million settlement for those arrested.[9][11] In August 2017, director Seth Gordon announced that he would be directing a film called Tulia about the case.[12]

In 2007, after becoming a staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union, Gupta filed a lawsuit against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) concerning detention conditions for asylum seekers.[13] In August 2007, a landmark agreement was reached between ACLU and ICE, under which the conditions in the T. Don Hutto detention center improved and a number of children from the center were released.[13]

On August 6, 2009, the Department of Homeland Security announced intentions to improve the nation's immigration detention system, including ending family detention at the T. Don Hutto family detention center in Taylor, Texas.[14]

After her time as a staff attorney at the ACLU, she served as its Deputy Legal Director and Director of its Center for Justice.[15] She has been credited with pioneering the ACLU's National Campaign to End Mass Incarceration.[16]

Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights (2014–2017)
Gupta speaks at a naturalization ceremony in 2016

In October 2014, President Barack Obama appointed Gupta as the United States Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights and head of the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division.[2]

Under Gupta's leadership, the Civil Rights Division worked to advance criminal justice reform and constitutional policing, including by investigating and working to reform police departments in Ferguson, Missouri;[17][18] Cleveland; Baltimore, and Chicago, among other cities. Gupta also oversaw a wide range of other enforcement efforts for the Division. This work included prosecuting hate crimes and human trafficking, promoting disability rights, protecting the rights of LGBT individuals and combating discrimination in education, employment, housing, lending and voting.[19][20]

Gupta's tenure was marked by several high profile matters that included the investigations of the Ferguson, Baltimore, and Chicago police departments; the appeals of the Texas and North Carolina voter ID cases; the challenge to North Carolina’s HB2 law and other LGBTQ rights litigation; enforcement of education, land use, hate crimes, and other statutes to combat Islamophobia and other forms of religious discrimination; the issuance of statements of interest on bail and indigent defense reform, and letters to state and local court judges and administrators on the unlawful imposition of fines and fees in criminal justice system; and the Administration’s report on solitary confinement.

In 2016, under Gupta's leadership, the division sued North Carolina, alleging that the state's implementation of a law known as House Bill 2 discriminates against transgender individuals in violation of federal civil rights laws.[21]

In August 2016, Gupta announced the division's findings of its civil investigation into the Baltimore Police Department (BPD). The division found that BPD engages in a pattern or practice of conduct that violates the Constitution and federal statutory law, including unconstitutional stops, searches, and arrests; excessive force and enforcement strategies that produce an unjustified disparate impact on African-American residents.[22]

Personal life

Gupta is married to Chinh Q. Le, Legal Director of the Legal Aid Society of the District of Columbia.[23] They have two sons.[24]

References
  1. "Obama to nominate ACLU lawyer to lead Justice Department's civil rights division". Washington Post. Retrieved May 14, 2016.
  2. Holder, Eric (October 14, 2014). "Attorney General Holder Announces Vanita Gupta to Serve as Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division". US Dept. of Justice. Retrieved March 8, 2015.
  3. "Biography of Vanita Gupta, The Huffington Post Blog Contributor". The Huffington Post. Retrieved November 19, 2010.
  4. Brookins, Freddie. "For Civil Rights Chief, Fighting For The Outsider Is Deeply Personal". NPR.org. Retrieved October 22, 2016.
  5. "Obama to nominate ACLU lawyer to lead Justice Department's civil rights division". Washington Post. Retrieved October 22, 2016.
  6. "Merrick Garland Is To Be Joe Biden's Nominee For Attorney General". NPR.org. Retrieved January 6, 2021.
  7. "Vanita Gupta". ACLU.org. American Civil Liberties Union. Retrieved July 27, 2017.
  8. Richardson, Lynda (April 16, 2003). "PUBLIC LIVES; Young Lawyer, Old Issue: Seeking Social Justice". The New York Times. Retrieved August 7, 2009.
  9. Chooki, M. (December 17, 2004). "India Abroad Awards, Bhardwaj is 'India Abroad Person of the year,' Gupta receives Special Award". News India-Times.com. Archived from the original on November 15, 2006. Retrieved August 7, 2009.
  10. Jim Yardley (August 29, 2002). "Texas Attorney General Opens An Inquiry Into '99 Drug Sweep". The New York Times. Retrieved August 7, 2009.
  11. Gupta, Vanita (October 16, 2015). "Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Vanita Gupta Delivers Remarks at Yale law School's Law and Inequality Conference". US Dept. of Justice. Retrieved August 11, 2016.
  12. "Seth Gordon to Direct 'Tulia,' Story of Notorious Racial Injustice Case (Exclusive)". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved August 11, 2017.
  13. "Landmark Settlement Announced in Federal Lawsuit Challenging Conditions at Immigrant Detention Center in Texas". American Civil Liberties Union. August 27, 2007. Retrieved August 7, 2009.
  14. Aziz Haniffa (August 7, 2009). "Major victory for Indian American lawyer". Washington, DC: Rediff. Retrieved August 7, 2009.
  15. Holder, Eric (October 14, 2014). "Attorney General Holder Announces Vanita Gupta to Serve as Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division". United States Department of Justice. Retrieved March 8, 2015.
  16. Rodriguez, Gina (August 1, 2015). "A Head with Heart | NYU Law Magazine". NYU Law Magazine. The People, 2015. Retrieved May 14, 2016.
  17. "A look at the DOJ's Ferguson Probe with head of the Civil Rights Division Vanita Gupta". politics.uchicago.edu. Retrieved May 14, 2016.
  18. Robertson, Campbell; Dewan, Shaila; Apuzzo, Matt (March 7, 2015). "Ferguson Became Symbol, but Bias Knows No Border". The New York Times. New York Times Company. Retrieved March 8, 2015.
  19. "About the Civil Rights Division". US Dept. of Justice. Retrieved June 30, 2016.
  20. "Helping Schools Ensure the Civil Rights of Transgender Students". justice.gov. Office of Public Affairs, US Dept. of Justice. May 13, 2016. Retrieved May 14, 2016.
  21. "Justice Department Files Complaint Against the State of North Carolina to Stop Discrimination Against Transgender Individuals". justice.gov. Retrieved August 18, 2016.
  22. "Justice Department Announces Findings of Investigation into Baltimore Police Department". www.justice.gov. Retrieved August 18, 2016.
  23. "Making Justice Real: Chinh Q. Le '00". University of Virginia School of Law. May 16, 2018. Retrieved August 10, 2020.
  24. "Vanita Gupta". The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. Retrieved August 10, 2020.
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