Vanita Gupta

Senior Advisor on Government Use of AI

Vanita Gupta is a Distinguished Scholar in Residence at NYU School of Law. From 2021 to 2024, Gupta served as the 19th Associate Attorney General of the United States. In that role, Gupta oversaw high profile litigation matters including settlements that provided historic compensation for victims of mass gun violence (Charleston AME, Parkland, and Sutherland Springs) and that changed federal law enforcement policies during mass demonstrations (Lafayette Square cases). Other highlights of her tenure include the negotiation and implementation of the President’s policing and criminal justice reform executive order, including creation of a DOJ accreditation regime for police departments and a first-ever national law enforcement accountability database; and the after-action assessment of the law enforcement response to the mass shooting in Uvalde,Texas. Immediately prior to her time as Associate Attorney General, Gupta served as the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, the nation’s oldest and largest coalition of non-partisan civil rights organizations in the United States. From October 15, 2014, to January 20, 2017, Gupta served as Acting Assistant Attorney General and Head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. Gupta began her legal career as an attorney at the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, where she successfully led the effort to overturn the wrongful drug convictions of 38 individuals in Tulia, Texas, who were ultimately pardoned by Governor Rick Perry, and obtain a $6 million settlement on their behalf.

Gupta has served on the boards of non-profit organizations and educational institutions. She appears regularly in the media, and has won numerous awards for her work. Gupta graduated magna cum laude from Yale University and received her law degree from New York University School of Law.