Vanita Gupta

Gupta is married to Chinh Q. Le, the legal director of the Legal Aid Society of the District of Columbia. They have two sons. In 2022, Gupta received the Charles R. Richey Equal Justice Award from George Washington University Law School.

During her time at the organization, Gupta worked to combat harmful online misinformation, and "often sat shoulder-to-shoulder with tech leaders including Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg" to discuss content moderation strategies. She took a leave from the organization in January 2021 and formally left once confirmed as Associate Attorney General in April 2022.

On January 7, 2021, President Joe Biden nominated Gupta to serve as the United States Associate Attorney General. On March 9, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on her nomination. Her 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. Christine Todd Whitman, a Republican who served in the George W. Bush administration, endorsed her nomination.

Gupta was sworn in on April 22, 2021. On April 27, 2022, she announced the launch of the National Law Enforcement Knowledge Lab, an initiative to create a "free, voluntary one-stop-shop for information, guidance and training for law enforcement agencies." The police-reform lab is part of a "push to boost best policing practices", The Hill reported. After the Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde, Texas, Gupta joined Attorney General Merrick Garland and Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco in reviewing local law enforcement's response to the shooting.

In December 2021, 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 June 2020, Gupta testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee about the murder of George Floyd and the need to end police brutality in the United States.

Throughout her career, she has drawn support from a wide range of liberal and conservative activists, as well as law enforcement groups, for building support for policing and criminal justice reform. Gupta served as president and chief executive officer of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights from 2017 until her nomination as Associate Attorney General in 2021.

In 2017, Gupta became president and chief executive officer of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. In this role, she criticized the Trump administration for its response to the Charlottesville Unite the Right rally and accused then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions of trying to increase mass incarceration.

In 2016, under Gupta's leadership, the division sued North Carolina, alleging that the state's implementation of House Bill 2 discriminated against transgender individuals in violation of federal civil rights laws.

In August 2016, an investigation by Gupta's division concluded that the Baltimore Police Department engaged in a pattern or practice of conduct that violated the Constitution and federal statutory law, including unconstitutional stops, searches, arrests, excessive force, and enforcement strategies that produced an unjustified disparate impact on African-American residents.

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.

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 Residential Center.

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) about detention conditions for children whose parents were asylum seekers. In August 2007, a landmark agreement was reached between ACLU and ICE, under which the conditions in the T. Don Hutto Residential Center improved and several children were released from the center.

Coleman did not use wiretaps or marked money, and records showed that he had "filed shoddy reports". He had previous misdemeanor charges for stealing gasoline from a county pump and abuse of official capacity. Gupta won the release of her clients in 2003, four years after they were jailed, then negotiated a $6 million settlement for them. In 2004, she received the Reebok Human Rights Award. As of 2018, Paramount is making a film, Tulia, about the case.

As a child, Gupta regularly moved with her family, and lived in the United Kingdom and France before returning to Philadelphia. She received her Bachelor of Arts, magna cum laude, from Yale University. Gupta credits her experience at Yale with helping form her "passion for social activism". She received her Juris Doctor from New York University School of Law in 2001.

Vanita Gupta (born November 15, 1974) is an American attorney who has served as United States Associate Attorney General since April 22, 2021. From 2014 to 2017, Gupta served as Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division under President Barack Obama.