Robert A Destro

Mr. Destro is a human rights advocate and a civil rights attorney with expertise in elections and employment law. He is also professor of law and director of the Institute for Policy Research and Catholic Studies at The Catholic University of America. Mr. Destro has been on the faculty at Catholic University’s Columbus School of Law since 1982 and served as its Interim Dean from 1999 to 2001. He served a six-year term as Commissioner of the United States Commission on Civil Rights. Mr. Destro’s legal work includes collaboration with the Peace Research Institute Oslo in a fifteen-year dialogue among Muslim, Christian, and Jewish legal, business, and religious leaders in the United States and the Middle East and efforts promoting the release of political prisoners and prisoners of conscience in the Middle East. He has also served as voting rights counsel for the Ohio Secretary of State and advocated for the First Amendment rights of individuals and organizations. He earned a B.A. from Miami University, Ohio, and a J.D. from the University of California at Berkeley. He is an active member of the Bar in Ohio and California.