The University of Tennessee College of Law will host Vanita Gupta as the Rose Lecturer on Oct. 30, 2017 at noon.
Gupta is CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.
She previously served as Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General and acting head of the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. Under Gupta’s leadership, the Civil Rights Division worked on issues of constitutional policing and police department reform in Ferguson, Missouri, Cleveland, Baltimore, and Chicago.
Gupta has devoted her life to challenging barriers to justice faced by minorities, the poor and the disenfranchised. She will discuss what she see as the civil and human rights challenges that we currently face and how lawyers can meet their ethical and professional responsibilities as citizens “having special responsibility for the quality of justice” as required by the Rules of Professional Conduct.
Gupta will discuss how lawyers have met, and should continue to meet, a host of challenges including promoting voter access; protecting the rights of LGBTQ individuals; fighting hate crimes, bigotry, and human trafficking; and promoting disability rights.
Following a 30-minute address, Gupta will be joined by Charles Fels, Episcopalian priest at the Church of the Good Shepherd in Knoxville, Tennessee, and of counsel with Ritchie, Dillard, Davies & Johnson. Fels and Gupta will discuss current civil and human rights issues and access to justice issues facing Tennessee lawyers and lawyers’ ethical and professional obligations.
Learn more here about Gupta and the event.