Vice President Joe Biden announced the Obama Administration’s appointment of Caroline Bettinger-López as the new White House Advisor on Violence Against Women on Tuesday, March 4, 2015. Bettinger-López will act as advisor to the President and Vice President on issues of domestic and sexual violence and is the second person to hold this role.
Bettinger-López is the founder and one of the Directors of the University of Miami School of Law’s Human Rights Clinic. She is also an Associate Professor of Clinical Legal Education at University of Miami School of Law, although she is currently on a leave of absence as she serves as the White House Advisor on Violence Against Women.
Her scholarship has focused on human rights and gender- and race- based discrimination. Bettinger-López was the victim’s lead counsel before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in Jessica Lenahan (Gonzales) v. United States, where the Commission found the United States responsible for violating the human rights of a domestic violence victim when the police failed to enforce a protection order. View the press release here.
Bettinger-López co-authored the article “Stand Your Ground” Laws: International Human Rights Law Implications, which appeared in Volume 68 of the University of Miami Law Review. The article focused on the international implications of “Stand Your Ground” laws.
