The highest ranking Indian American at the U.S. Attorney General’s office will leave office in February, reports the Times of India.
Vanita Gupta became the first Indian American to hold the number three position since being confirmed by the U.S. Senate in April 2021.
She has been a strong advocate for civil rights in both the Biden and Obama administrations, where she worked as assistant attorney general for civil rights.
No reason was given for her resignation and no announcement has been made about her future plans.
“I am deeply grateful to Vanita for her extraordinary service as Associate Attorney General. Vanita’s commitment to the pursuit of justice, and her relentless focus on bringing people together to find common ground, has made her an incredibly effective leader in dealing with some of the most complex challenges facing the American people,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement. “She has distinguished herself as the kind of leader who is also a partner to the career and non-career employees who work for her, to the stakeholders the Department works with, and to the public we all work for.”
The American Bazaar reports under the Biden Administration, Gupta handled not only civil rights, but antitrust and environmental cases as well as the administration of over $5 billion in federal grants for public safety and criminal justice.
She also headed the Justice Department’s Reproductive Rights Task Force and, as Garland stated, defended “the reproductive freedoms that are protected by federal law.”
She began her career working for the NAACP and the American Civil Liberties Union. She graduated from both Yale and the New York University School of Law.
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