Hate Crime Law: An Overview

Becky Monroe is the Director of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law's Stop Hate Project. Monroe joined the Lawyers Committee after working for almost eight years in the Obama Administration, most recently in the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice as the Director for Policy and Planning for the Civil Rights Division and Senior Counselor to the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights. Between the end of 2012 and January, 2017, Monroe was responsible for oversight of different aspects of the Division’s work, including policy, educational civil rights enforcement, and enforcement of the anti-discrimination provision of the Immigration and Nationalization Act. She led the Division’s community engagement and outreach work, helping to ensure that community members had significant and meaningful input in the Division’s work. She also coordinated the Division’s policies related to immigration and immigrant rights issues. Monroe also worked at the White House Domestic Policy Council (DPC) as a Senior Policy Advisor on the Urban Affairs, Justice, and Opportunity team, helping to develop and implement President Obama’s Administration’s civil rights priorities. Before joining the DPC, Monroe worked at the Community Relations Service of the U.S. Department of Justice. As Acting Director, she led an agency with 10 regional offices and 4 field offices in implementation of expanded statutory mandate empowering an unprecedented number of communities to prevent and more effectively respond to violent hate crimes. She worked with law enforcement and local government officials, community leaders, and federal agencies to support those leaders in addressing tension associated with allegations of discrimination on the basis of race, color, and national origin, and helping communities develop the capacity to more effectively prevent and respond to violent hate crimes committed on the basis of actual or perceived race, color, national origin, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, or disability. Monroe joined the Obama Administration after working as Counsel at the Constitution Project, a non-partisan think tank and advocacy organization where she worked with law enforcement and military officials, political leaders, and community organizations on immigration and liberty and national security issues. Before the Constitution Project, Monroe served as the Director of the Employment Rights Project at Bet Tzedek Legal Services in Los Angeles, California, where she represented low-wage undocumented immigrant workers and women who were trafficked for labor. Prior to her work with Bet Tzedek, Becky was a litigation associate at Strumwasser and Woocher, LLP, a public interest law firm in Santa Monica, California. A graduate of Georgetown University and Yale Law School, she served as a law clerk to the Honorable Richard A. Paez of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

bmonroe@lawyerscommittee.org