UCLA Law professor Laura E. Gómez, the Rachel F. Moran Endowed Chair in Law, has been elected to the board of directors of MALDEF, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund.

MALDEF is widely celebrated as the most prominent and impactful civil rights organization fighting on behalf of Latinos. Founded in 1968 and headquartered in Los Angeles, with regional offices around the nation, its stated mission is to “protect and defend the rights of all Latinos living in the United States and the constitutional rights of all Americans.” MALDEF pursues litigation in the areas of employment, education, voting rights or political access, immigrants’ rights, and bias or racism.

Gómez is a longtime supporter of MALDEF, and her appointment to the nonprofit’s board is the latest recognition of her deep commitment to civil rights and the Latino community. “I am honored to volunteer for an organization I so admire,” she says, “led by extraordinary litigators Tom Saenz and Nina Perales.”

She adds that she has been a law professor for three decades and is proud to have taught several students who went on to work full-time at MALDEF or for private firms or allied civil rights organizations that were cocounsel with MALDEF.

Gómez joined the UCLA faculty in 1994 and is a cofounder and former faculty director of the trailblazing Critical Race Studies program at UCLA Law. In 2021, she earned the Outstanding Scholar Award from the Fellows of the American Bar Foundation for her research in law and society, legal history, and Latinos and the law. Her 2020 book, Inventing Latinos: A New Story of American Racism (The New Press), and her 2007 book, Manifest Destinies: The Making of the Mexican American Race (NYU Press), have drawn wide acclaim.