Vanita Gupta ’01 launches new center to rebuild trust and reimagine institutions in US democracy

This week NYU Law launched the Center for Law and Public Trust, with former US Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta ’01 as its director. The center will house initiatives that seek to build public trust in US institutions by making them more effective and accountable to the American people and more resilient against corruption and abuse. Using the tools of scholarship, policy design, and practical training, the center will seek to strengthen the foundations of US democracy.

Gupta, who is a distinguished scholar in residence and adjunct professor at NYU Law, served as US associate attorney general from 2021 to 2024. Before that, she was president and chief executive officer of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. Gupta also led the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division during the final two and a half years of the Obama administration.

“Ever since she joined our community as a distinguished scholar in residence, I have been struck by Vanita’s energy, her dedication to her students, and her constructive approach to addressing the times in which we find ourselves,” said Troy McKenzie ’00, dean and Cecelia Goetz Professor of Law. “This new center will be an enormous asset to both our community and to our country at large.”

We spoke to Gupta about the objectives of her new center and its positioning in the political landscape.

How will the mission of this center differ from that of other democracy-focused initiatives, both here at NYU Law and elsewhere?

Trust in American institutions—government, courts, and even civil society—has steadily eroded and now stands at historic lows. Our focus will be on thinking about how to rebuild institutions that have been so core to our democracy, and doing that in a forward-looking way. So, we will build on the work of those who are documenting breakdowns in the rule of law or the decline of democratic institutions presently, and look ahead at how, in a time of very intense polarization, we can reconstruct institutions and restore trust. What are the ingredients for that?

The center will be very practically oriented. Through issue briefs, roadmaps for the future, and innovation and design labs, it will develop blueprints for reimagining institutions. And since institutions are trusted only insofar as we trust the people who lead them, we’ll also be looking very closely at leadership and what leadership needs to look like in this moment.

We cannot rest in a place of deep cynicism in this country. We have to be willing to think about what we need to do to anchor the rule of law and shore up democratic institutions. That’s going to take a combination of leadership and willingness to be bold and think transformatively.

The description of the center talks about the need to address root causes of public distrust in government and other institutions. Can you briefly describe some of those root causes?

Americans across the political spectrum view institutions in this country as fundamentally corrupt and rife with abuse—that they don’t deliver for the American people. People are concerned about politically motivated enforcement, growing inequality and an economy that only serves some, the erosion of fundamental rights, and a breakdown of ethical values in public service. And there’s a notion that leaders can stray from long-standing institutional norms and get away with it; that we don’t have transparency or accountability. Additionally, the amount of dis- and misinformation in our media ecosystem—and the polarization of our media ecosystem—has contributed to a perilously low level of trust in institutions and in leaders.

The center will examine a range of questions around this:  Which institutions have legitimacy and why? Which have been broken or are viewed as corrupt and why and by whom? How can we rebuild broken institutions differently now? How can we make critical democratic institutions more resilient against corruption and abuse? I believe that crisis yields opportunity, and given the state of distrust in institutions right now, we have an opportunity to be intentional about this and actually think bigger than we have before.

Throughout much of your career, you’ve held positions focused on civil rights. Why are you going in this direction now?

The aspiration of living in a multiracial society, where the rule of law undergirds our constitutional democracy—this is very much of a piece with the center’s mission. Without credible and effective institutions and leaders, the promise of equal justice and democratic governance—and even public safety under law—just rings hollow.

The center will chart a path toward institutions that are both more effective and more just—and, in turn, more worthy of the public’s trust.

How would you describe the center’s positioning politically?

While we seem to be polarized right now in so many ways, distrust in our public institutions and leaders is shared across the political spectrum. This center will strive to be deeply critical, unmoored by any partisan assumptions. The ideas that we examine are going to need to come from everywhere and from anyone who believes in the rule of law. It’s not about a particular party's view, but there is a premise that the folks that we engage with will be very concerned about the state of our democracy, and that they’ll have ideas about how to make our institutions more effective in the face of the current historic lows in trust.

Throughout my career, I have worked with progressives and conservatives to advance criminal justice reform. I have worked with law enforcement and civil rights leaders to build  police-community trust. The best ideas can emerge or can stick when we break down silos and invite people in who challenge us, who can expand our thinking and the concept of what’s possible.

Why did you decide to make leadership training part of the center's mission, and what will that involve?

It is striking to me that so many lawyers in our country go on to lead institutions with little to no intentional management or leadership training. So, I hope to offer that to NYU Law students, young lawyers, and mid-career lawyers. I want them to understand, for example, effective ways to lead and get things done in government service and civil society organizations, and to learn how you manage in crisis, how you navigate difficult territory to get things done for the American people. These are the types of things that are really important and valuable, and that I wish I had had with every new job that I started, including my most recent job in the government.

What do you expect to be the biggest challenges in achieving the center's goals?

I think the biggest challenge will be thinking that is too limited or influenced by the status quo. Sometimes folks are so constrained by their own experience that it’s hard for them to imagine a different way of building an institution or doing the work. And then, secondly, I would say cynicism—people just not believing in the project of transformative rebuilding, not believing that it’s going to change anything.

This work is hopeful and forward looking. People are hungry to chart a future and feel like we are building towards something. And so I'm excited to launch this center, at this moment, to do just that.