Vanita Gupta

Before joining the Obama administration, she was the deputy legal director at the American Civil Liberties Union, where she spearheaded the group’s efforts on Ferguson. She was a co-author of a study, launched months earlier, looking into the militarization of local police departments — an issue that garnered new attention after violent protests erupted between the Ferguson Police Department and people angry over the death of Brown. Born in Philadelphia, she is the daughter of Indian immigrants and spent much of her early childhood in England and France, where her father worked as a business manager for a multinational chemical company. She later attended Yale, studying history and women’s studies, prompting her family to tease her about what she was going to do with her life. But that soon became clear to her parents when, in 1996, Gupta, dressed in her graduation gown, skipped her commencement ceremony to demonstrate with Yale employees fighting for fair wages. She later graduated from New York University’s School of Law.