The United States Senate on April 21, 2021 voted to confirm civil rights lawyer Vanita Gupta as Associate Attorney General.
- She is the first Indian American to serve as the US Justice Department’s third-highest ranking official.
- She would also be the first woman of colour and civil rights attorney to serve in this post.
- Vanita Gupta started her legal career at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. It was here that she rose to national prominence after she investigated a series of drug-related convictions and arrests of several men in Tulia, Texas.
- In 2014, she was appointed by then-President Barack Obama to serve as Acting Assistant Attorney General and head of the US Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division.
