Meera Deo M.A. ’05

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Meera Deo M.A. ’05 is a doctoral candidate in sociology. The daughter of immigrants from Karwar and Mumbai, India, she holds a bachelor of arts degree with high honors in interdisciplinary studies: comparative cultures from UC Berkeley (1996) and a juris doctorate from the University of Michigan Law School (2000). She received a master’s degree in sociology from UCLA and expects to complete her dissertation next year.

As a law student and practicing civil rights attorney, she held diverse positions including intervenor and legal team member in the landmark affirmative action case, Grutter v. Bollinger; international legal extern with the South African Human Rights Commission; William J. Brennan First Amendment Fellow at the ACLU National Legal Department; and staff attorney for women’s health at the California Women’s Law Center. Deo began doctoral studies at UCLA in fall 2003 in order to connect her legal background to research that furthers social justice. She plans to link her past experiences as an attorney with a future career as a university professor, utilizing an interdisciplinary approach to teaching and research.

In addition to numerous research grants and awards from a variety of sources including UCLA and the Asian American Justice Center, Deo is a recipient of two full-time, multi-year academic fellowships: the Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans and the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship.

In four years of graduate school, she has served as a teaching assistant and teaching fellow at UCLA as well as a visiting adjunct professor of law at the New College of Florida. Since 2004, she also has been director of qualitative research for the Educational Diversity Project, a national, longitudinal, multi-method study of law school diversity. Her primary research interest is with students of color in higher education; she also studies cultural preservation in immigrant communities and media representation of Asian/Pacific Islander Americans.

Her publications and conference presentations include contributions to issues of race and higher education, law school diversity, media representation, affirmative action in the U.S. and India, American education case law in sociological context and the law school curriculum. Deo is a member of the State Bar of California and is active in the community as a member of South Asian Women Activists of Los Angeles and PALS for Health Advisory Council. She is also a reviewer for Ethnic and Racial Studies.