Roger Severino

Roger Thomas Severino (born 1974/1975) is an American attorney who served as the director of the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) at the United States Department of Health and Human Services from 2017 to 2021. He is currently a Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. Early life and education Severino, the son of immigrants from Colombia, was raised in Los Angeles. He received a bachelor's degree in business from University of Southern California, a Master of Public Administration from Carnegie Mellon University, and a Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School. Career From 2008 to 2015, Severino was a trial attorney in the United States Department of Justice Civil Rights Division. Severino was also previously CEO and counsel for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, a nonprofit law firm taking on cases related to freedom of religion. In 2015, Severino joined The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank geared towards public policy. There, he served as the director of the DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society at The Heritage Foundation. Severino has written several opinion columns for The Daily Signal. Severino has also written for Public Discourse: Ethics, Law, and the Common Good, a journal published by the Witherspoon Institute, a conservative think-tank. Department of Health and Human Services In March 2017, President Donald Trump appointed Severino as Director of the Office for Civil Rights at the United States Department of Health and Human Services. He left the position on January 15, 2021.