Anurima Bhargava is the Founder and President of Anthem of Us, a strategic advisory firm promoting dignity and justice in the building of our workplaces, schools, and communities. From 2010-2016, she led federal civil rights enforcement in schools and institutions of higher education at the U.S. Department of Justice, and previously directed the education practice at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. In December 2018, Speaker Nancy Pelosi appointed her U.S. Commissioner on International Religious Freedom, where she currently serves as Vice-Chair.
After leaving the Obama administration in 2016, she served as a fellow at the Institute of Politics and the Carr Center for Human Rights at Harvard, and as the inaugural Leadership in Government Fellow at the Open Society Foundations.
Bhargava advises and produces documentary films, and chairs the board of Doc Society. She serves as advisor to Unbound Philanthropy, co-chairs the National Advisory Board on Public Service at Harvard and is a 2017 Presidential Leadership Scholar. She also advises numerous political campaigns and was appointed to the 2020 DNC Platform Committee.
Bhargava graduated from Columbia Law School and Harvard College. She grew up on the south side of Chicago, where she currently resides.
