Staff

Linda Chavez

Chairman

Linda Chavez is Chairman of the Center for Equal Opportunity. She has published opinions and columns in newspapers across the country and appears regularly on cable news. Chavez is the author of the three books: Out of the Barrio: Toward a New Politics of Hispanic Assimilation, An Unlikely Conservative: The Transformation of an Ex-Liberal, and Betrayal: How Union Bosses Shake Down Their Members and Corrupt American Politics. She has been honored by the Library of Congress as a "Living Legend" and as nominee for Secretary of Labor by President George W. Bush.

Chavez has held many appointed positions and has served on numerous corporate and nonprofit boards. Among her appointed positions has been Chairman, National Commission on Migrant Education (1988-1992); White House Director of Public Liaison (1985); Staff Director of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights (1983-1985); and member of the Administrative Conference of the United States (1984-1986). Chavez was also the Republican nominee for U.S. Senator from Maryland in 1986 and was elected by the United Nations' Human Rights Commission to serve a four-year term as U.S. Expert to the U.N. Sub-commission on the Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities.

Chavez earned her BA from the University of Colorado.

Devon Westhill

President and General Counsel

Devon Westhill is an attorney focused on matters of constitutional and civil rights. He researches, speaks, and writes about civil rights, civil liberties, and related issues such as race relations, social change, and equal opportunity.

Mr. Westhill's writing has been published in numerous outlets including Newsweek, National Review, and The Wall Street Journal. He has spoken hundreds of times at college campuses, conferences, and on radio programs, and has appeared on cable television channels including Fox News, Newsmax, and CSPAN. Mr. Westhill has also provided expert testimony to both houses of the U.S. Congress, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. For over a decade, he has also been sought after as an expert on organizational effectiveness.

Mr. Westhill led the civil rights office at the U.S. Department of Agriculture in the Trump administration as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights. He has also worked at the U.S. Department of Labor, Federalist Society, and as a criminal trial lawyer in private practice. Mr. Westhill is a U.S. Navy veteran with degrees from UNC at Chapel Hill and the University of Florida.

Rudy Gersten

Executive Director

Gersten is Executive Director of the Center for Equal Opportunity. In this role, he is the chief financial officer, coordinates fundraising efforts, and manages the office. Gersten writes appeals to donors as well as updates on our activities.

Mr. Gersten has written columns in the Washington Post, National Review Online, Townhall.com, among others. He has been quoted in the Washington Post and CNN on issues of race and ethnicity and appeared on radio shows and podcasts to discuss a variety of issues.

Gersten earned his B.A. in Government and Politics from the University of Maryland.

Stuart Taylor, Jr.

Of Counsel and Senior Fellow

Taylor is an author and freelance journalist focusing on legal and policy issues including unfairness and excessive punishment in the criminal justice system. He has coauthored three critically acclaimed books and has written since 1980 for leading publications including The New York Times, American Lawyer Media, National Journal, Newsweek, RealClearPolitics, and many other newspapers and magazines. Taylor has been interviewed on all major broadcast networks and has won numerous journalism honors. Taylor and coauthor KC Johnson wrote both The Campus Rape Frenzy: The Attack on Due Process at America’s Universities and Until Proven Innocent: Political Correctness and the Shameful Injustices of the Duke Lacrosse Rape Fraud. Taylor is also known for his collaboration with Richard Sander on Mismatch: How Affirmative Action Hurts Students It's Intended to Help, and Why Universities Won't Admit It. Taylor earned his BA from Princeton and his JD from Harvard Law School.

Althea Nagai

Senior Research Fellow

Nagai has conducted numerous statistical analyses on racial and ethnic preferences in higher education, including racial and ethnic preferences in undergraduate education at five public universities in Virginia, the University of Michigan, two Arizona universities, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, two Ohio universities, and various law and medical schools. In addition, she has written two essays for CEO focusing on Asian Americans, Too Many Asian Americans, and Harvard Investigates Harvard. Nagai has also has done work on other statistical studies in the field of social policy and has conducted studies on marriage, religion, and family structure; on adolescent risk behavior; on philanthropy and social change; and on American elites (American Elites, with Robert Lerner and Stanley Rothman, 1996 Yale University Press). Nagai earned her BA from the University of Hawaii in psychology and political science and both her MA and PhD from the University of Chicago in political science.

Anthony Pericolo

Visiting Fellow

Anthony Pericolo is CEO’s first Visiting Legal Fellow. He was also a fellow in CEO’s inaugural 2022 Civil Rights Fellowship.

Anthony is a 2023 graduate of Harvard Law School and a patent litigator in Washington, D.C. Before law school, Anthony earned dual degrees in economics and electrical and computer engineering from the University of Rochester.

Besides his appreciation for intellectual property law, Anthony is passionate about civil rights work. He grew up in Westfield, New Jersey, and is the son of Italian immigrants. He learned the value of hard work and equal opportunity through his family, who came to the U.S. with little but the clothes on their backs. Appreciative of the opportunities that the United States gave them, his parents made Anthony’s middle name, Amerigo, after the Italian cartographer from whom this nation derived its name. He was the first person in his family to attend college. Anthony wishes that the structures that enabled his hardworking parents to move upward can pervade future generations.