Valarie Kaur is an award-winning filmmaker, legal advocate, theologian, and public speaker. A third-generation Sikh American, she is founding director of Groundswell, a social action initiative at Auburn Theological Seminary committed to building the multifaith movement for justice. Combining storytelling and advocacy, Valarie leads national campaigns on urgent social challenges facing her generation, including religious pluralism, immigrant rights, prison reform, LGBT equality, and economic justice. As a legal advocate, Valarie recently clerked on the Senate Judiciary Committee, traveled to Guantanamo to report on the military commissions, and represented Latino residents in a prominent campaign against racial profiling in East Haven, CT. Her award-winning Divided We Fall (2008) earned national attention as the first feature documentary on hate crimes following September 11, 2001. She has been invited to speak on her work in 200 U.S. cities and major media outlets such as CNN, MSNBC’s the Rachel Maddow Show, NPR, BBC, and the New York Times.
Valarie earned bachelors degrees in religion and international relations at Stanford University, masters in theological studies at Harvard Divinity School, and a law degree at Yale Law School, where she currently trains students in the art of visual advocacy as founding director of the Yale Visual Law Project. Recent films in law and justice include Alienation (2011) on immigration raids, Stigma (2011) on stop-and-frisks, and Supermax (coming summer 2012) on the prison industrial complex.
Valarie has been called “a woman of extraordinary courage and vision,” an “inspiring millennial,” and “one of the most exceptional speakers/thinkers“ in the new generation of public intellectuals. She takes all as compliments that reflect her outstanding team of co-conspirators.
Join her on Facebook and Twitter @valariekaur.
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