Rachel Gore Freed is a human rights lawyer, community organizer, and social justice advocate and educator with a wealth of domestic and international experience. As UUSC’s Vice President and Chief Program Officer, Freed leads the organization’s creative and effective approaches to advancing human rights.
Previously serving as the Senior Program Leader for UUSC’s Rights at Risk Program, Freed has spearheaded, planned, and implemented UUSC’s work responding to humanitarian crises and advancing the rights of people who are most overlooked or discriminated against in crises such as forced migration, large-scale conflicts, genocide, and natural disasters. Prior to joining UUSC, Freed was deeply engaged in community struggles around the world. This work included successful litigation against Exxon for violations of the Clean Air Act in the Houston Baytown shipping channel, arguing for the right to seek asylum before the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, and representing low-income immigrants and detained asylum-seekers pursuing relief from unjust deportation in New York City. She has also helped volunteer youth serve as peace witnesses in Gujurat, Northern India after communal rioting and worked with the legal team that prosecuted former President of Liberia Charles Taylor and leaders of the rebel forces through the Special Court for Sierra Leone.
Freed currently serves on the Steering Committee of the Human Rights Funders Network, the Board of Mavuno in the Congo, and works with progressive women’s community organizing groups in the Boston-area.
Freed holds a bachelor’s degree with a focus in international development from the George Washington Elliott School of International Affairs and a doctor of law degree from Vanderbilt University Law School.
rfreed @ uusc.org
