Ria Tabacco Mar is the Director of the ACLU’s Women’s Rights Project, where she oversees the ACLU’s women’s rights litigation.

Previously, she was a senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender & HIV Project, where she fought gender stereotypes, sex segregation, and attempts to use religion to discriminate in schools, at work, and in public places. Tabacco Mar was part of the ACLU’s litigation team in two cases now before the Supreme Court in which the Trump administration has argued it should be legal to fire someone because they are LGBTQ. She also led the ACLU’s team in Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, the case in which a same-sex couple was refused a wedding cake because they are gay.

Tabacco Mar is a frequent commentator on gender justice issues, appearing on television programs including "All In with Chris Hayes," "Politics Nation with Al Sharpton," and PBS’s "Firing Line with Margaret Hoover," and has authored opinion pieces for the New York Times, Washington Post, and other outlets.

She has been recognized on The Root 100 annual list of the most influential African Americans ages 25 to 45 and as one of the Best LGBT Lawyers Under 40 by the National LGBT Bar Association.

Prior to joining the ACLU, Tabacco Mar served as Assistant Counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, an associate at Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP, and as a judicial law clerk to Judge Julia Smith Gibbons of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and to Judge Victor Marrero of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Ria graduated from New York University School of Law and Harvard College.

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