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President Trump sent U.S. troops to the border with Mexico to supplement the work of authorities there. President Biden pledges a new approach as pressures mount along the boundary.
About the Expert
Expert Bio
Rachel Vogelstein is the Douglas Dillon senior fellow and director of the Women and Foreign Policy program at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) in Washington, DC, and a professor of gender and U.S. foreign policy at Georgetown Law School. At CFR, Vogelstein's research is focused on the relationship between women's advancement and prosperity, stability, and security. She is the author of Awakening: #MeToo and the Global Fight for Women's Rights (2021).
From 2017 to 2018, Vogelstein was a visiting fellow with the Center for Global Legal Challenges at Yale Law School, where she taught a seminar on women’s issues in U.S. foreign and national security policy.
From 2015 to 2016, Vogelstein served as senior advisor on women's issues for the Hillary for America campaign, developing domestic and global policy and leading a coalition of over 200 women's leaders and organizations. She also served as an advisor to the Clinton-Kaine transition team.
From 2009 to 2012, Vogelstein was director of policy and senior advisor in the Office of Global Women's Issues within the Office of the Secretary of State at the U.S. Department of State. In this capacity, she advised Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton on a range of foreign policy issues related to the advancement of women, and represented the U.S. Department of State as a member of the White House Council on Women and Girls. Following her tenure in government, from 2013 to 2015, Vogelstein served as the director of Women's and Girls' Programs in the Office of Hillary Rodham Clinton at the Clinton Foundation, where she oversaw the development of the No Ceilings initiative and provided guidance on domestic and global women’s issues.
Vogelstein is an attorney by training with expertise on gender equality. Prior to joining the State Department, she was senior counsel at the National Women's Law Center in Washington, DC, where she specialized in women's health and reproductive rights. In 2004, she was awarded an Equal Justice Works Fellowship to work on women's health policy. She also served as assistant counsel to then-Senator Clinton's first presidential campaign and on the staff of her 2000 U.S. Senate campaign. She has lectured widely on the rights of women and girls, including at the U.S. Congressional Women's Caucus, U.S. Department of State, U.S. Foreign Service Institute, the World Bank, the Brookings Institution, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Harvard Law School, Stanford Law School, and Yale University.
Vogelstein graduated magna cum laude from Columbia University's Barnard College and cum laude from Georgetown Law School, where she was executive editor of the Georgetown Law Journal. Following law school, Vogelstein clerked for the Honorable Thomas L. Ambro on the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. She has served on the board of the National Women’s History Museum and Planned Parenthood Global and is a recipient of the Secretary of State's Superior Honor Award and a National Association of Women Lawyers Award.
Affiliations:
- Georgetown Law School, adjunct professor
- National Women’s History Museum, board member
- TIME’S UP, Senior Advisor
Current Projects
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Rachel Vogelstein and Meighan Stone chronicle the remarkable global impact of the #MeToo movement.
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Human trafficking bolsters abusive regimes and criminal groups, weakens global supply chains, fuels corruption, and undermines good governance. Jamille Bigio and Rachel B. Vogelstein urge the United States to increase investment in anti-trafficking measures.
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Find out where women around the world wield political power—and why it matters.
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Incorporating lessons from the approaches pursued by other countries, the U.S. government should take a more systematic and well-resourced approach to promoting gender equality in foreign policy.
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A recent spate of state laws to restrict abortion services in the United States has reignited debate over the procedure. How does the United States’ regulation of abortion compare to the rest of the world?
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Human trafficking can fuel conflict, drive displacement, and undercut the ability of international institutions to promote stability. The United States should work to disrupt and dismantle the criminal networks and terrorist groups that exploit conflict-related human trafficking, while prioritizing the prevention and prosecution of and protection from human trafficking in conflict contexts.
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The education gender gap costs the world between $15 trillion and $30 trillion in human capital. U.S. aid programs need to equip girls and women to participate in the modern digital economy.
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Terrorism and Counterterrorism
U.S. policymakers overlook the roles that women play in violent extremism—including as perpetrators, mitigators, and victims—and rarely enlist their participation in efforts to combat radicalization. This omission puts the United States at a disadvantage. -
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