Maya Lakshmi Harris (born January 30, 1967) is an American lawyer, public policy advocate, and writer. Harris was one of three senior policy advisors for Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign's policy agenda and she also served as chair of the 2020 presidential campaign of her sister,

Kamala Harris Kamala Devi Harris ( ; born October 20, 1964) is an American politician and attorney who served as the 49th vice president of the United States from 2021 to 2025 under President Joe Biden. She is the first female, first African American, and ...

. Harris was born in Champaign–Urbana, Illinois, and was educated at Bishop O'Dowd High School in

Oakland, California Oakland is a city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area in the U.S. state of California. It is the county seat and most populous city in Alameda County, California, Alameda County, with a population of 440,646 in 2020. A major We ...

, the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

, and

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

. She was involved with PolicyLink, the

American Civil Liberties Union 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. T ...

, and the

Center for American Progress The Center for American Progress (CAP) is a public policy think tank, research and advocacy organization which presents a Modern liberalism in the United States, liberal viewpoint on Economic policy, economic and social issues. CAP is headquarter ...

Early life and education

Maya Lakshmi Harris was born in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, and grew up in the

San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, commonly known as the Bay Area, is a List of regions of California, region of California surrounding and including San Francisco Bay, and anchored by the cities of Oakland, San Francisco, and San Jose, California, S ...

and

Montreal Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...

, Quebec. She is the younger child of Shyamala Gopalan Harris, a breast cancer researcher who emigrated from Madras (now known as

Chennai Chennai, also known as Madras (List of renamed places in India#Tamil Nadu, its official name until 1996), is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Tamil Nadu by population, largest city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost states and ...

), India, in 1958; and Donald Harris, a Jamaican-born

economics professor, now emeritus. Her maternal grandfather, P. V. Gopalan, was a career civil servant with

Government of India The Government of India (ISO 15919, ISO: Bhārata Sarakāra, legally the Union Government or Union of India or the Central Government) is the national authority of the Republic of India, located in South Asia, consisting of States and union t ...

. She and her older sister, Kamala, were raised with beliefs from Baptist and

Hindu Hindus (; ; also known as Sanātanīs) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism, also known by its endonym Sanātana Dharma. Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pp. 35–37 Historically, the term has also be ...

faiths. At 17, while attending Bishop O'Dowd High School in Oakland, she gave birth as a single parent to her only child, Meena Harris. Harris earned her Bachelor of Arts degree from the

in 1989. That year, she enrolled in

Stanford Law School Stanford Law School (SLS) is the Law school in the United States, law school of Stanford University, a Private university, private research university near Palo Alto, California. Established in 1893, Stanford Law had an acceptance rate of 6.28% i ...

. While at Stanford, she was an editor of the ''Stanford Law Review'', and active with the East Palo Alto Community Law Project, serving as Co-Coordinator of the Domestic Violence Clinic and co-chair of the Student Steering Committee. She earned her J.D. degree in 1992 "with distinction".

Career

Legal

After receiving her J.D. degree from Stanford Law School, Harris served as a law clerk for United States District Court judge James Ware in the Northern District of California. In 1994, Harris joined the San Francisco law firm of Jackson Tufts Cole & Black, LLP, working in civil and criminal litigation. The firm dissolved in 1999. Harris served as an adjunct law professor at the

University of San Francisco School of Law The University of San Francisco School of Law (USF Law) is the law school of the private University of San Francisco. Established in 1912, it received American Bar Association accreditation in 1935 and joined the Association of American La ...

. She also taught gender discrimination at U.C. Hastings College of the Law, contract law at the now closed New College of California School of Law, and was dean of the Lincoln Law School of San Jose. At 29, she was one of the youngest law school deans in the United States, and the only Indian woman at the time.

Advocacy

Harris was a senior associate at PolicyLink, a national research and action institute dedicated to advancing economic and social equity. In that capacity, she organized conferences around police-community relations and advocated for police reform, authoring two national publications. Harris served as executive director of the Northern California

. She was the first Jamaican American to lead the ACLU of Northern California and the first South Asian executive director of an ACLU affiliate. In her role as the head of the largest affiliate office of the ACLU, Harris directed and coordinated litigation, media relations, lobbying, and grassroots organizing work. She earlier served as the affiliate's Racial Justice Project Director, establishing priorities including eliminating racial disparities in the criminal justice system and achieving

educational equity Educational equity, also known as equity in education, is a measure of equity in education. Educational equity depends on two main factors. The first is distributive justice, which implies that factors specific to one's personal conditions should ...

in California public schools. In 2003, Harris was the Northern California director for No on 54, the successful campaign to defeat Proposition 54, which sought to ban state agencies from collecting racial and ethnic data. In 2006, she was the lead attorney in '' League of Women Voters of California v. McPherson'', a case which restored voting rights to over 100,000 Californians in county jails on probation from felony convictions.

Philanthropy

In 2008, Harris was appointed vice president for democracy, rights and justice at the

Ford Foundation The Ford Foundation is an American private foundation with the stated goal of advancing human welfare. Created in 1936 by Edsel Ford and his father Henry Ford, it was originally funded by a $25,000 (about $550,000 in 2023) gift from Edsel Ford. ...

. The program focused on promoting effective governance, increasing democratic participation, and protecting and advancing human rights worldwide, and she led a global team in making grants of over $150 million annually.

Politics

Harris was a senior associate at PolicyLink. From 2008 until 2013, Harris was vice president for Democracy, Rights and Justice at the

. Prior to joining the

, she served as the executive director of the

(ACLU) of Northern California, the largest ACLU affiliate in the country. Harris was formerly a senior fellow at the

and a visiting scholar at Harvard Law School. She was a political and legal analyst for

MSNBC MSNBC is an American cable news channel owned by the NBCUniversal News Group division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. Launched on July 15, 1996, and headquartered at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in Manhattan, the channel primarily broadcasts r ...

from 2017 until 2018. As Hillary Clinton's campaign representative to the Democratic Party Platform Committee, Harris helped draft the 2016 platform. Harris served as campaign chairwoman for her sister's 2020 campaign for president until the campaign's suspension.

Writing

Harris authored the essay "Fostering Accountable Community-Centered Policing", which appeared in the 2006 book '' The Covenant with Black America''. She was also a contributing author to ''The Shriver Report: A Woman's Nation Pushes Back from the Brink'', publishing the essay "The Gender Wage Gap: A Civil Rights Issue for Our Time". Harris has authored publications which include, ''Community-Centered Policing: A Force for Change'', a report highlighting community-centered policing practices nationwide, and ''Organized for Change: The Activist's Guide to Police Reform'', an advocacy manual for police reform. In 2008, Harris published ''Making Every Vote Count: Reforming Felony Disenfranchisement Policies and Practices in California''. In 2014, she authored ''Women of Color: A Growing Force in the American Electorate''. In 2020, Harris wrote in ''The Atlantic'' and ''Women's Health Magazine'' about living with the chronic illness

lupus Lupus, formally called systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), is an autoimmune disease in which the body's immune system mistakenly attacks healthy tissue in many parts of the body. Symptoms vary among people and may be mild to severe. Common ...

that she was diagnosed with at the age of 22.

Awards and honors

In 1997, the Young Lawyers Division of the

National Bar Association The National Bar Association (NBA) was founded in 1925 and is the nation's oldest and largest national network of predominantly African Americans, African-American attorneys and judges. It represents the interests of approximately 67,000 lawyers, ...

honored her with the Junius W. Williams Young Lawyer of the Year Award. The following year, she was named one of the Top 20 Up and Coming Lawyers Under 40 by the '' San Francisco Daily Journal''. In 2006, Harris was named one of ten notable Desis of the year. She was awarded the Women Who Dare Award from Girls, Inc. in 2008. In 2009, Harris was named to the first class of The Root 100, celebrating the "leadership, service and excellence of African-American men and women whose passion, dedication and innovative work have set them apart." She was presented with the Champion of Justice Award from Equal Rights Advocates in 2014, an award given annually to a hero in the movement for gender equality.

Personal life

Harris has not publicly revealed the father of her child, Meena Harris, to whom she gave birth in 1984. She has been married to Tony West since July 1998. Maya and Tony were both in the class of 1992 at Stanford Law School, where they became friends but did not start a relationship until after graduation. Her daughter Meena graduated from Stanford in 2006 and from Harvard Law School in 2012. Her sister,

, was the

vice president of the United States The vice president of the United States (VPOTUS) is the second-highest ranking office in the Executive branch of the United States government, executive branch of the U.S. federal government, after the president of the United States, and ranks f ...

from 2021 to 2025, and unsuccessfully ran in the 2024 presidential election as the Democratic nominee.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Harris, Maya 1967 births Living people 20th-century African-American lawyers African-American women lawyers 20th-century American lawyers 20th-century American women lawyers 21st-century African-American lawyers 21st-century American lawyers 21st-century American women lawyers 21st-century American women writers American campaign managers American civil rights lawyers American Civil Liberties Union people American people of Indian Tamil descent American politicians of Indian descent American politicians of Jamaican descent Activists from the San Francisco Bay Area Bishop O'Dowd High School alumni California Democrats California lawyers Criminal justice reform in the United States Deans of law schools in the United States

Maya Maya may refer to: Ethnic groups * Maya peoples, of southern Mexico and northern Central America ** Maya civilization, the historical civilization of the Maya peoples ** Mayan languages, the languages of the Maya peoples * Maya (East Africa), a p ...

Hillary Clinton 2016 presidential campaign Kamala Harris 2020 presidential campaign Lincoln Law School of San Jose faculty New College of California People associated with the 2016 United States presidential election People associated with the 2020 United States presidential election Stanford Law School alumni University of California, Berkeley alumni University of San Francisco faculty Women deans (academic)