Faculty Directory

Rachel Freed

Bio

Rachel Gore Freed is a human rights lawyer, community organizer, social justice advocate and educator with a wealth of domestic and international experience. Freed currently serves as the vice president and chief program officer at the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee (UUSC), where she leads the organization’s creative and effective approaches to advancing human rights. She 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 the emergent impacts of the climate crisis.

Prior to joining UUSC, Freed worked at the National Environmental Law Center, where she successfully litigated against Exxon for violations of the Clean Air Act in the Houston Baytown shipping channel. She has also worked for a civil rights law firm, representing low-income immigrants and detained asylum-seekers pursuing relief from unjust deportation in New York City, and argued for the right to seek asylum before the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals. Freed previously 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. She has also helped volunteer youth serve as peace witnesses in Gujurat, Northern India, after communal rioting. Freed is currently co-chair of the steering committee of the Human Rights Funders Network and also serves on the advisory committee for the Feminist Organizing School for Funders. Freed holds a bachelor’s degree with a focus in international relations with a focus on sustainable development from the George Washington Elliott School of International Affairs and a doctor of law degree from Vanderbilt University Law School.