Contact: Sammy McDavid
STARKVILLE, Miss.--A nationally recognized member of the American Civil Liberties Union's national office will speak Monday [March 24] at Mississippi State.
Vanita Gupta, staff attorney with the ACLU's Racial Justice Program, is being featured in a 7 p.m. public program at the university's Lee Hall auditorium. "'Injustice Anywhere is a Threat to Justice Everywhere': Civil Rights and Women's Rights in the 21st Century" will be the topic of her remarks.
Gupta's campus visit is sponsored by MSU's Gender Studies Program.
Prior to joining the private New York City-based advocacy organization in 2006, Gupta was assistant counsel with the NAACP's Legal Defense and Education Fund. In that position, she successfully led an effort to overturn the drug convictions of 38 defendants in the small town of Tulia, Texas. In addition to convincing the Lone Star State's governor to issue a pardon, she helped settle a multi-million-dollar wrongful conviction civil suit on behalf of group members.
For her work in Tulia, Gupta received extensive coverage in the international and national media. The story of Gupta, an Indian-American, and the Tulia 38, all African-Americans, also is the subject of an upcoming Paramount Pictures release produced by John Singleton.
Gupta is a magna cum laude graduate of Yale University in both history and women's studies. While later attending the New York University School of Law, she was honored with the Anne Petluck Poses Prize for her work in yearlong clinics involving capital-case defenses and juvenile rights.
Over her career, Gupta has received the Soros Justice Fellowship and a number of other prominent awards.
For more information on Gupta's campus visit and presentation, contact Susan Rensing of the Gender Studies faculty at 662-325-7085 or 325-1466.
For more information about Mississippi State University, see http://www.msstate.edu/.