News & Commentary written by Ria Tabacco Mar

Ria Tabacco Mar works at the intersection of gender, race, and LGBTQ status to ensure that all of us can live free from laws and policies that constrain us based on gender or the ability to bear children. Under her leadership, the ACLU Women's Rights Project has fought the White House's attacks on childcare, defended pregnant workers in America, challenged barriers to housing opportunities for Black women and survivors of domestic violence, and taken down sexist dress codes. Previously, Ria served as a lawyer with the ACLU LGBTQ & HIV Project and with the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc.

Ria has been involved in gender justice litigation at every stage, including several merits or certiorari-stage cases at the U.S. Supreme Court, such as United States v. Skrmetti (whether states can ban gender-affirming healthcare for young people), Charter Day School v. Peltier (whether girls at public charter schools have the same constitutional rights as their peers at other public schools), National Coalition For Men v. Selective Service System (men-only registration for the draft), Bostock v. Clayton County, Ga. (in which the Supreme Court recognized it is illegal to fire someone for being LGBTQ), and 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).

A frequent commentator on civil rights issues, Ria has appeared on broadcast programs including All In with Chris Hayes, Politics Nation with Al Sharpton, and PBS's Firing Line with Margaret Hoover and authored opinion pieces for the New York Times, Washington Post, and other outlets.

Ria began her legal career as a 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 and as a litigation associate at Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP. She graduated cum laude from New York University School of Law and magna cum laude from Harvard College.

Ria is a member of the American Law Institute and serves on the Board of Directors of Pregnancy Justice.