Valarie Kaur is an American interfaith leader. As a lawyer, filmmaker, and Sikh activist, she helps communities channel their stories into movements for social change. She has made award-winning films and led multimedia campaigns on a wide range of issues: hate crimes against Sikh and Muslim Americans, racial profiling, gun violence, marriage equality, immigration detention, and solitary confinement. Valarie is a regular television commentator on MSNBC and opinion contributor to CNN, NPR, PBS, The Washington Post, The Huffington Post, The Hill and The New York Times. She has reported on the military commissions at Guantanamo and clerked on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Valarie founded Groundswell Movement of 200,000+ members, America’s largest multifaith online organizing community known for “dynamically strengthening faith-based organizing in the 21st century.” A Senior Fellow at Auburn Seminary, she regularly teaches “storytelling for social change” to students, organizers, and interfaith groups. She also works with the U.S. State Department to bring these tools abroad, recently traveling and teaching throughout Myanmar. She earned degrees at Stanford University, Harvard Divinity School, and Yale Law School, where she founded the Yale Visual Law Project to train future lawyers to make films for social and policy change. Valarie is currently the Media and Strategy Fellow at Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society, where she co-founded Faithful Internet and advocates for Internet freedom and access.

The Center for American Progress calls Valarie “a standout figure in the world of interfaith organizing and activism” and among 13 progressive faith leaders to watch. In 2013, she was named “Person of the Year” by India Abroad and one of eight Asian American “Women of Influence.” A prolific public speaker, Valarie has addressed audiences at the White House, Pentagon, and on more than 200 U.S. college campuses, including Stanford University, where she was the youngest to deliver the Stanford Baccalaureate Commencement Address. She was honored by the World Economic Forum as a Young Global Leader in 2015. She spoke at the 2015 Parliament of the World’s Religions. Valarie is a member of the State Bar of California.