Genevieve (Genzie) Bonadies Torres*

Genevieve (“Genzie”) Bonadies Torres serves as Associate Director for the Educational Opportunities Project. Genzie’s work focuses on providing Black, Indigenous, Latino/a, and other communities of color equal access to a quality education through immediate interventions and systemic reform. Her litigation matters include: combatting anti-diversity and inclusion efforts that censor speech related to race and sex in violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments, promoting equitable access to higher education through race-conscious admissions and other diversity programs, challenging discriminatory practices in K-12 schools and higher education, and combatting the predatory practices of for-profit colleges. Recently, Genzie has served as counsel for student amici at Harvard and intervenors at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the trials defending their universities’ right to consider race in admissions to promote diversity. Genzie also co-leads litigation challenging the recently passed Oklahoma classroom censorship law that severely restricts conversations in school around race, sex, and the perspectives of historically marginalized communities.

Prior to joining the Lawyers’ Committee, Genzie served as an attorney at Centro Legal de la Raza in Oakland, California as a Public Service Venture Fund and Fine Fellow. As part of her Fellowship, Genzie worked within Centro Legal’s housing and employment programs to provide direct legal services to low-income, monolingual Spanish speakers. Additionally, she staffed Centro Legal’s ongoing legal clinics and co-developed new partnerships to expand Centro Legal’s outreach to the Oakland community, including the Oakland Day Laborer Outreach Project and school-legal partnerships with Oakland public schools.

Genzie received her J.D. from Harvard Law School, during which time she worked as a student attorney with the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau (HLAB) where she co-led HLAB’s Eviction Clinic and the Wage and Hour practice. She also worked with the Harvard Immigration Project to develop Know Your Rights workshops for Boston’s immigrant community. Prior to law school, Genzie served as a sixth-grade teacher in Phoenix, Arizona where she taught both special education inclusion and gifted cohorts. She earned her B.A. from Harvard University where she pursued a joint concentration in History & Literature and Studies of Women, Gender, & Sexuality.

Bar Admissions: Admitted in California, District of Columbia. Admitted to the US District Court for the Southern District of California.