Gary Orfield, professor of education and co-director of the Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles at UCLA, is an expert on education policy, urban policy, minority opportunity and civil rights.

 

His central interest has been the development and implementation of social policy — with a central focus on the impact of policy on equal opportunity for success in American education and society.

 

A prolific author in several disciplines, Orfield publishes and comments frequently on issues involving civil rights and social policy, school resegregration, high school drop-out rates, educational equity and access, education achievement gaps, and educational reform.

 

He has served as an expert witness in many high-profile legal cases having to do with access to education and civil rights law and has written extensively on the national progress of school desegregation in the U.S. over the last three decades.

 

Orfield is also a professor of law, political science and urban policy.