International Human Rights Advocate Gulika Reddy Joins Stanford Law School’s Faculty

July 1, 2022 – Stanford Law School (SLS) today announced that Gulika Reddy will join its Mills Legal Clinic faculty as the new director of the law school’s International Human Rights Clinic. Reddy is a human rights advocate and has conducted human rights advocacy around the world, including in India, Kashmir, Yemen, the Central African Republic, and Papua New Guinea. Most recently, Reddy was the Acting Director of the Human Rights Clinic and Co-Executive Director of the Human Rights Institute at Columbia Law School.

Gulika Reddy, Director of the International Human Rights Clinic
Gulika Reddy, Director of the International Human Rights Clinic

“It is an honor to join the preeminent clinical program at Stanford,” said Reddy. “I am thrilled to work with my colleagues to equip students with technical legal and human rights skills as well as the necessary interdisciplinary lens and reflective capacity to effectively bring about and sustain change. Working with students has been one of the most rewarding and joyful aspects of my advocacy and teaching. Their work consistently demonstrates that transformative change is possible and I am so excited to work and learn alongside students at Stanford.”

“Gulika has done path-breaking work in international human rights and peacebuilding,” said Stanford Law Professor Jayashri Srikantiah, Associate Dean of Clinical Education and Director of the Mills Legal Clinic. “We are delighted to be able to offer our students the opportunity to work under her supervision.”

Clinical Education at SLS

Founded in 2005, the Mills Legal Clinic is a vital part of SLS’s mission to prepare every student for the challenges, responsibilities and rewards of a career as a legal professional. The unique, full-time clinic model allows students to commit to a long-term project and engage in an immersive experience that reinforces what they have learned in the classroom. The International Human Rights Clinic engages students in multi-disciplinary advocacy to advance the rights of impacted individuals and communities globally. Students in past clinics have engaged in advocacy around the world, including in El Salvador, the Middle East, Mexico, China, Haiti, Myanmar, Colombia, Nicaragua, and Thailand.

“Stanford is known for being a hub of innovation across traditional academic boundaries and clinical education has the potential to nurture creative, reflective, and critical lawyers and reconfigure power imbalances in the social justice field,” said Reddy.

“Stanford Law is the ideal home for this clinic which will work in partnership with communities and civil society to prevent and redress human rights abuses and foster just and lasting peace globally using strategies from both the human rights and peacebuilding fields.”

Before joining Columbia Law School, Reddy worked with lawyers, nonprofits, and academic institutions in India to prevent and respond to identity-based discrimination through litigation, legislative reform, grassroots activism, and public education. She is the Founder of Schools of Equality, a nonprofit organization in India that runs experiential programs in schools with the aim to shift social attitudes that perpetuate gender-based violence and other forms of identity-based discrimination. Reddy and her nonprofit have been featured in several national and international media outlets and she has received awards and recognition for her impactful, innovative, and rights-based approach to effecting change.

Reddy received an MPP from Harvard Kennedy School of Government, where she was a Dubin Leadership Fellow, and an LL.M. from Columbia Law School, where she was a Human Rights Fellow. In 2016, Columbia Law School’s Human Rights Institute awarded her a Commendation for Leadership and Commitment in Human Rights, the World Economic Forum named her one of the Davos 50, and she was invited to attend their 2016 Annual Meeting in Davos. Reddy was also awarded the TalentNomics Global Emerging Game-Changer award for exemplary dedication to the empowerment of women and girls.

Reddy’s academic research interests include critical perspectives on human rights, decolonial and anti-racist pedagogy, and the intersection between human rights and peacebuilding. Her work has been published in several publications including the Harvard Human Rights Journal and Harvard Kennedy School Women’s Policy Journal.