“Lives in the Law,” Vanita Gupta, Deputy Legal Director of the ACLU and Director of the ACLU’s Center for Justice

Gupta oversees the ACLU’s criminal justice reform, prisoners’ rights, and capital punishment work. Before becoming deputy legal director, Gupta was a staff attorney with the ACLU’s Racial Justice Program, focusing on systemic criminal justice reform, immigration detention, 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. Before joining the ACLU, Gupta worked at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund where she successfully led the effort to overturn the wrongful drug convictions of thirty-eight individuals in Tulia, Texas.

 

The event is part of the “Lives in the Law” speaker series focusing on the work and lives of lawyers who strive to improve the lives of others through litigation, advocacy, and public service, presented by the JusticeCenter and the Career Services Office. Cosponsors of Gupta’s talk include the American Journal of Criminal Law, the Public Interest Law Association, the Texas Journal on Civil Liberties & Civil Rights, and the Thurgood Marshall Legal Society