Rebecca Epstein

Rebecca Epstein is the Executive Director of the Center on Gender Justice & Opportunity at Georgetown Law. She has over 25 years’ experience in litigation and policy development. As a civil rights litigator, Rebecca worked to advance racial equity and reproductive health and combat sex discrimination; during her time at Georgetown, she has focused on championing the rights of marginalized girls. Among other publications, Rebecca was the co-author of Criminalized Survivors: Today’s Sexual Abuse to Prison for Girls (2023), and the lead author of the groundbreaking report Girlhood Interrupted: The Erasure of Black Girls’ Childhood (2017), which identified adultification bias. She has published op-eds in national and local publications, given briefings to Congress and the White House on girls’ issues, and spoken as an expert at events and conferences across the country.

Rebecca was elected to the Brown University Advisory Council of the Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research on Women, and she has received recognition for her work from several organizations, including the Champion of Education award from the Education Law Center. She served as a member of the Steering Committee of the Girls @ the Margin National Alliance; a co-leader of the National Girls Initiative, a project of the US Department of Justice; and an advisor to several girls-serving organizations.

Previously, Rebecca served as a senior trial attorney in the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice; a staff attorney at Public Justice, a national public interest law firm; and Policy Counsel at the National Partnership for Women and Families, through the Georgetown Women’s Law and Public Policy Fellowship program.
Rebecca graduated with honors from Brown University and received her J.D. from New York University School of Law. She clerked for the Honorable Raymond A. Jackson in the Eastern District of Virginia, and is a member of the DC, New York, and Supreme Ct bars.