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Maya Rupert Wants to Nurture the Potential of Aspiring Politicians of Color
2020 Presidential Candidate Julian Castro’s campaign manager speaks of the glass ceiling for people of color, her own backlash, and community-building
Maya Rupert is making history. As the third Black woman to manage a presidential campaign — working for Julian Castro, the first Latinx presidential candidate — she’s laying the foundation for a new generation of Black women and girls to authentically be themselves in electoral politics. Rupert’s presence in our nation’s politics is a powerful space that reclaims space — historically maintained by white Ivy League alumni — for Black women. The importance of our expertise is in both developing and implementing an intersectional policy agenda that honors the lived experiences of marginalized communities. This must be combined with actionable steps on how to resolve the harm done by generations of White supremacist policies.
In the Office of General Counsel, as part of Secretary Julian Castro’s administration at the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development, Rupert advocated for transgender people to access government-funded shelters based on their gender identity instead of their sex assigned at birth. As the former policy director for the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR), she understood the importance of this federal decision, and its negative impact on the lives of trans women of color, who experience institutional barriers due to the intersections of their race and gender.
Her advocacy was influential in the implementation of this policy in September 2016, and resulted in a promotion to being one of Castro’s senior aides throughout the Obama White House. Rupert’s intersectional policy-making decisions was founded on a communal principle centering diverse and historically silenced voices.
Before her entrance into electoral politics, Rupert’s experience at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law and a brief tenure at a law firm ignited her desire to pursue social justice through the fields of nonprofit advocacy and politics. At the Center for Reproductive Rights and NCLR, she coordinated a comprehensive policy agenda that intergrated…
