Phyllis W. Cheng is Director of the Department of Fair Employment and Housing. Appointed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in January 2008, she heads the largest state civil rights agency in the nation.

Ms. Cheng has extensive civil rights experience on employment, housing, public accommodation and education discrimination. Immediately prior to her current position, she was of counsel at the Los Angeles office of Littler Mendelson, the national employment and labor law firm representing management clients. Ms. Cheng was formerly a senior appellate court attorney to the Honorable Laurie D. Zelon, Associate Justice of the California Court of Appeal, Second Appellate District, Division Seven. She was also a deputy attorney general in the Civil Rights Enforcement Section of the California Department of Justice, where she represented state civil rights agencies. As a former associate at Hadsell & Stormer, a premier civil rights and human rights firm, she further practiced employment discrimination law representing plaintiffs. Former Governor Pete Wilson appointed Ms. Cheng to two terms on the California Fair Employment and Housing Commission, where she served as vice chair and regulations subcommittee chair, and ruled on nearly 80 Fair Employment and Housing Act, Unruh Civil Rights Act, and Ralph Act cases.

Before becoming a lawyer, Ms. Cheng had a public policy career. At the Los Angeles Unified School District, she founded and directed a citizens’ commission to address sex discrimination, was Title IX coordinator, and monitored a Title VII consent decree promoting women into administration in the state’s largest school system. Ms. Cheng was also responsible for the passage of California’s version of the Title IX law prohibiting sex discrimination in education. In addition, she was a researcher on school desegregation at the RAND Corporation, adjunct faculty at the University of California—Los Angeles, director of a mentoring program for at-risk minority girls at the University of Southern California, and a debate panelist on KNBC-TV’s Emmy-winning “Free 4 All” program. Former Governor George Deukmejian appointed her to the California Commission on the Status of Women and the Interagency Coordinating Council on Early Intervention. She also served on the California Comparable Worth Task Force.

Ms. Cheng is active with the State Bar of California. She is a member of the Committee on Bar Examiners, a former member of the executive committees of the Labor & Employment Law and Public Law Sections, a partner of the National Asian Pacific American Lawyers Association, and a member of the Southern California Chinese American Lawyers Association. She was also editor of both the California Labor & Employment Law Review and the Public Law Journal, and is an attorney editor of The Rutter Group’s 2009 California Practice Guide: Employment Litigation. Ms. Cheng continues to author a regular column on cases pending before the California Supreme Court and provides a free case alert service on new labor and employment law decisions to nearly 6,000 legal practitioners. In addition, she has published widely in both legal journals and newspapers.

Ms. Cheng received her B.A. and M.Ed. degrees from the University of California—Los Angeles, her Ph.D. degree from the University of Southern California, and her J.D. degree from Southwestern University School of Law.

Ms. Cheng is an immigrant from Hong Kong and a native speaker of Chinese in three dialects.