32 Facts About Vanita Gupta

Vanita Gupta was born on November 15,1974 and is an American attorney and civil rights leader who served as United States Associate Attorney General from April 22,2021, to February 2,2024.

From 2014 to 2017, Gupta served as Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division under President Barack Obama.

Vanita Gupta was considered one of the top choices of the Harris campaign for Attorney General.

Vanita Gupta is a Distinguished Scholar in Residence at NYU School of Law.

Vanita Gupta served as deputy legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, where she oversaw its national criminal justice reform efforts.

Vanita Gupta has served as Assistant Counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.

Vanita Gupta was born in Media, Pennsylvania, to Indian immigrant parents.

Vanita Gupta is the daughter of Muzaffarnagar-born businessman Rajiv L Gupta and Kamla Varshney.

Vanita Gupta's father is the chairman of Aptiv, an automotive parts company.

Vanita Gupta had previous misdemeanor charges for stealing gasoline from a county pump and abuse of official capacity.

Vanita Gupta won the release of her clients in 2003, four years after they were jailed, then negotiated a $6 million settlement for them.

In 2007, after becoming a staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union, Vanita Gupta filed a lawsuit against US Immigration and Customs Enforcement about detention conditions for children whose parents were asylum seekers.

Vanita Gupta has been credited with pioneering the ACLU's National Campaign to End Mass Incarceration.

Vanita Gupta built bipartisan coalitions to advance pre-trial and sentencing reforms around the country.

In 2017, Vanita Gupta became president and chief executive officer of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.

In June 2020, Vanita Gupta testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee about the murder of George Floyd and the need to end police brutality in the United States.

Vanita Gupta took a leave from the organization in January 2021 and formally left once confirmed as Associate Attorney General in April 2021.

Vanita Gupta oversaw a wide range of other enforcement efforts for the Division, including prosecuting hate crimes and human trafficking, promoting disability rights, protecting LGBT rights, and combating discrimination in education, employment, housing, lending and voting.

On January 7,2021, President Joe Biden nominated Vanita Gupta to serve as the United States Associate Attorney General.

Vanita Gupta's nomination was supported by a broad range of civil rights and law enforcement groups, as well as by prominent conservatives who had worked with her on criminal justice reform and voting rights.

Vanita Gupta faced strong opposition from Republicans who criticized her civil rights advocacy, particularly during the Trump administration.

Vanita Gupta pledged to sell her remaining $14.5 million stake in Avantor, a company her father chairs, amid questioning about a report that the company sold chemicals diverted by Mexican drug cartels to make heroin.

Vanita Gupta has said that the Justice Department intends to take a hard line on "killer acquisitions" as part of the Biden administration's effort to rein in monopolies.

Vanita Gupta is reportedly responsible for deciding whether Jonathan Kanter, Assistant Attorney General for the Antitrust Division, will be permitted to participate in the United States v Google LLC case.

In December 2021, Vanita Gupta announced a lawsuit against the state of Texas following the state's redistricting process, which the DOJ determined was in violation of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

In July 2023, Vanita Gupta announced a lawsuit against the state of Texas for installing floating barriers in the Rio Grande without federal authorization, saying the devices presented "threats to navigation and public safety and humanitarian concerns".

On January 4,2024, Vanita Gupta announced that the Justice Department was suing the state of Texas on the grounds that its enforcement of Senate Bill 4, allowing state and local police to arrest people suspected of entering the United States unlawfully, was unconstitutional.

On January 31,2024, it was reported that Vanita Gupta would leave her role as associate attorney general the following week.

Lakshmi Sridaran, executive director of SAALT, alleges that Vanita Gupta has the power to immediately return the $6 million paid to DHS, but does not say on what legal basis that is true.

Vanita Gupta has never worked at DHS or ICE, the two agencies involved in the scandal.

The South Asian groups are suing DHS, not DOJ where Vanita Gupta worked until 2024.

In 2022, Gupta received the Charles R Richey Equal Justice Award from George Washington University Law School.