One-on-One with Vanita Gupta

Description

The top civil rights lawyer and advocate on making the justice system anti-racist, the fight over federal policing and the anti-democratic assault on voting and the census.

This event was recorded as part of The 2020 Texas Tribune Festival that took place virtually Sept. 1-30, 2020. You’re welcome to watch here or share this link with your friends and colleagues to watch it on demand anytime. This session was recorded on Aug. 26 and aired on Sept. 2.

The Texas Tribune Festival brings you the biggest names in politics, policy and media. Check out the Festival website to watch some of our favorite free sessions from the 2020 Festival, and sign up to receive Texas Tribune event updates.

Correction: This video misstated the way George Floyd was killed and the circumstances of a Department of Justice investigation. Floyd died after a white police officer kneeled on his neck past the point when he lost consciousness, not in a shooting. This video also stated that the Justice Department is investigating the shooting. The Justice Department is investigating whether there were any civil rights abuses related to his in-custody death.

Speakers

Vanita Gupta

President & CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights

Gupta has been with The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights since 2017. Previously, she served as acting assistant attorney general and head of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, a position she was appointed to by former President Barack Obama. Gupta has also worked as director of the Center for Justice at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

Moderator

Katie Benner

Justice Department Reporter at the New York Times

Benner covers the Justice Department for The New York Times and was part of a team that won a Pulitzer Prize in 2018 in public service for reporting on workplace sexual harassment issues. Previously, she worked at Bloomberg as a tech columnist and in The New York Times' San Francisco bureau covering Apple, venture capital and startups. Benner also spent nearly a decade at Fortune, where she covered financial markets, private equity and hedge funds.