Vanita Gupta is Associate Attorney General USA

The U.S. Senate today narrowly confirmed Vanita Gupta as U.S. Associate Attorney General. She will be the third highest official in the Justice Department and, as an Indian-American, the first woman of color in the senior role.

Earlier today, Mitch McConnell, the Republican Leader, said in the Senate that he “will strongly oppose confirming Vanita Gupta…and I urge my colleagues to do the same.” He added that “Ms. Gupta has spent her career, in large part, as an activist for left-wing causes…Previously this nominee stated that, quote, ‘states should decriminalize simple possession of all drugs’. But now Ms. Gupta claims her position has ‘evolved’…she refused to say she’d accept any limitations on abortions, up to and including partial-birth…she told the Judiciary Committee just last year that state and local leaders should ‘heed calls’ from groups demanding that they ‘decrease police budgets’…This nomination has revealed a lengthy trail of radical claims and hasty backtracks.”

With the Senate split 50:50 between the Democrats and Republicans, Senator Lisa Murkowski from Alaska defied her Republican party leader McConnell and supported Gupta’s nomination; thus the Senate confirmed Gupta by 51 to 49 votes.

From October 2014 to January 2017, Gupta served as the Head of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, after being appointed to the post by President Barack Obama. As the chief civil rights prosecutor in the nation, Gupta took measures to advance constitutional policing and criminal justice reform; prosecute hate crimes and human trafficking; promote disability rights; protect the rights of LGBTQ individuals; ensure voting rights for all; and combat discrimination in education, housing, employment, lending, and religious exercise, said Senator Cory Booker, Democrat of New Jersey, in backing Gupta’s confirmation.

“The Justice Department needs more people like (Gupta). Her experience and dedication to civil rights will be a tremendous asset,” Diane Feinstein, a Democratic Senator from California said in a statement after the vote.

Up until her nomination, Gupta served as the CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, a coalition of over 200 U.S. civil rights groups. Earlier, she was a staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), including serving as the Director of the Center for Justice.

She started her legal career as an attorney at the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) Legal Defense & Educational Fund. At the age of 26, as chief counsel, she successfully led a team of three dozen lawyers in their effort to overturn the wrongful drug convictions of 38 African Americans in Tulia, Texas. The victims got a $6 million settlement and were later pardoned by Texas Governor Rick Perry.

The case quickly established Gupta’s stature as a strong advocate for civil rights, and that too at an early age, as well as led to media pundits forecasting she will go on to be a Supreme Court judge.

In January, while nominating Gupta for the Justice Department post, President Joe Biden said she was a daughter of immigrants from India. She was born in the Philadelphia area. Her parents are Rajiv (Raj) L. and Kamla Varshney Gupta, whose marriage was arranged in India. In 1968, they moved to the U.S. when Raj, a graduate in mechanical engineering of the Indian Institute of Technology, joined Cornell University for an MS in operations research.

Since 2015, Raj Gupta has served as Chairman of APTIVE PLC (formerly Delphi Automotive PLC). Earlier from 1999 to 2009, he was Chairman and CEO of Rohm and Haas, a Philadelphia based specialty chemicals company, which he joined in 1971. In 2009, he sold the company to Dow Chemical for $18 billion, when the Haas family wanted to dispose of their 33% stake.

That year, Raj and Kamla Gupta set up the Ujala (beacon) Foundation, based on the conviction that good health and education make a difference in achieving one’s full potential. Over the last decade, the foundation, in partnership with the Haas Family on several ventures, has contributed nearly $15 million to institutions in India and the United States: including Johns Hopkins, Drexel and Cornell Universities, the Philadelphia Zoo, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Pratham, Ekal Vidialaya, the American Indian Foundation and Indiaspora.

Vanita’s sister, Amita Gupta, a professor in Infectious Diseases at Johns Hopkins, was appointed to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Council. The council is the chief advisory committee for NIAID at the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

Vanita Gupta spent much of her childhood in England and France, where her father was posted by Rohm & Haas. While she does not recall when she first became interested in civil rights, she mentioned an incident in London, during an interview with The New York Times. While her family, including a grandmother visiting from India, ate in a McDonald's restaurant some skinheads hurled an ethnic slur at them.

Gupta graduated magna cum laude from Yale University and in 2001 received her law degree from New York University School of Law. She is married to Chinh Q. Le, legal director of the Legal Aid Society of the Washington D.C., who also worked at the NAACP. They have two sons.

Follwing her nomination in January, a group of anti-Trump, moderate Republicans launched a Confirm Gupta campaign, including spending $1 million in TV advertising.

Speaking on the Senate floor before the vote today, Lisa Murkowski, the sole Republican senator who voted for Gupta, said she found Gupta is “deeply committed to matters of justice….committed her professional life to try to get to the base of these injustices,” especially of domestic violence and sexual assault of women.”

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