Ehsan Zaffar is a civil rights advocate, educator and policymaker and the founder of the Los Angeles Mobile Legal Aid Clinic ( LAMLAC), which helped to pioneer the delivery of mobile legal care to vulnerable populations in California and across the nation. Zaffar primarily studies issues related to inequality and equity, and most recently the disparate impact of national and

homeland security Homeland security is an American national security term for "the national effort to ensure a homeland that is safe, secure, and resilient against terrorism and other hazards where American interests, aspirations, and ways of life can thrive" to ...

laws and policies on protected classes and other minority communities with a particular emphasis on

Establishment Clause In United States law, the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, together with that Amendment's Free Exercise Clause, form the constitutional right of freedom of religion. The ''Establishment Clause'' an ...

and

First Amendment First most commonly refers to: * First, the ordinal form of the number 1 First or 1st may also refer to: Acronyms * Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty-Centimeters, an astronomical survey carried out by the Very Large Array * Far Infrared a ...

(religious freedom) limitations surrounding security, privacy, and law enforcement. He served as Senior Advisor on civil rights at the United States Department of Homeland Security. He is a member of the faculty at

George Washington University The George Washington University (GW or GWU) is a Private university, private University charter#Federal, federally-chartered research university in Washington, D.C., United States. Originally named Columbian College, it was chartered in 1821 by ...

's Graduate School of Political Management and author of ''Understanding Homeland Security: Foundations of Security Policy''. In 2016, he joined General (Ret.) David Petraeus as a member of the board of Team Rubicon. Zaffar serves on the board of

ACLU The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is an American nonprofit civil rights organization founded in 1920. ACLU affiliates are active in all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico. The budget of the ACLU in 2024 was $383 million. ...

California is a Council Member of

Chatham House The Royal Institute of International Affairs, also known as Chatham House, is a British think tank based in London, England. Its stated mission is "to help governments and societies build a sustainably secure, prosperous, and just world". It ...

at the Royal Institute of International Affairs, the

Council on Foreign Relations The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) is an American think tank focused on Foreign policy of the United States, U.S. foreign policy and international relations. Founded in 1921, it is an independent and nonpartisan 501(c)(3) nonprofit organi ...

, and the Pacific Council on International Policy. He is the recipient of the U.S. State Department's Benjamin Franklin Award for Public Diplomacy and the

Department of Homeland Security The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is the U.S. federal executive department responsible for public security, roughly comparable to the interior, home, or public security ministries in other countries. Its missions invol ...

Secretary's Award for Excellence. Zaffar serves as a visiting fellow at the University of Southern California’s Sol Price School of Public Policy where his scholarly work focuses on social, political and economic inequality and he is also a Senior Scholar (non-resident) at the University of California, Berkeley. In 2021 he was appointed by Arizona State University President Michael M. Crow to found The Difference Engine, an initiative to study practical ways to reduce social, political and economic inequality in the United States. In 2024, The Difference Engine received investment from Bob Pozen and NBA Hall of Famer Earvin “Magic” Johnson to support its work in addressing inequality. He has teaching appointments at ASU's

Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law The Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law (ASU Law) is the law school at Arizona State University in Phoenix, Arizona. The school is in the Beus Center for Law and Society on ASU's downtown Phoenix campus. Created in 1965 as the Arizona State Unive ...

and the School of Social Transformation at ASU. He hosts UnfairNation, a podcast on inequality. Notable guests have included Dr. Thomas Nolan of the Boston Police Department and Nick Martin of TechChange, Jamie Harrison - Chair of the Democratic National Committee and Dr. Erroll Southers among others.

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* {{DEFAULTSORT:Zaffar, Ehsan George Washington University faculty Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Arizona State University faculty