Maaria Mozaffar is an attorney, legislative drafter, mediator, author and speaker. A fierce advocate for equity and human rights, Maaria has dedicated her career to crafting legislation and leading conversations that challenge systemic inequality and uplift the dignity of all people.
Her groundbreaking legislative work focuses on various areas, including social services, education, healthcare, criminal justice reform and women’s empowerment. She has crafted over a dozen legislations state and federal that have all become law and some have been replicated around the nation. Mozaffar has also led policy initiatives for various communiity organizations focusing on policies that halt dehumanization including the crafting of the Wadee Resolution, which was passed by the U.S. Senate, recognizing the 2023 murder of 6-year old Wadee Alfayoumi, a Palestinian-American Muslim boy in Illinois, as a hate crime. A snapshot of some legislative victories :
https://maariamozaffar.com/
Maaria holds a B.A. and J.D. from the University of Illinois. In 2019, she was appointed to the Illinois Council on Women and Girls, where she co-chairs the Leadership and Inclusion Committee, which introduced the first Illinois Girls Lead mentoring program. Her passion for creating pathways for people to realize their full potential, inspired her book, More Than Pretty: How to Live a Life of Substance in an Artificial World. Maaria has been profiled as a “Four Star Chicagoan” by WGN, profiled in CRAIN’S CHICAGO, CHICAGO PARENT, profiled by the Illinois State Bar Journal and profiled in the PBS Documentary The Great Muslim American Road Trip as one of the nation’s 20 changemakers, Her writings on dehumanization and policy have been published in global and national publications.
Mozaffar is also passionate about breaking people out of their echo chambers and thinking critically about the ways social media has been used to perpetuate divisions in our society. With her podcast A Way Forward, Maaria engages in conversations with an array of thought leaders, artists. subject matter experts and more to help us see the possibilities for personal and social change where we feel that there are none. She is committed to digging in deep on subjects and finding commonalities that introduce a new way forward.
