In a time when the country is perhaps more politically divided than ever before in modern history and issues of immigration and detention top the headlines, Seattle University School of Law’s 2026 Woman of the Year, Dana Gold ’95, is fighting to make a difference.
As senior director of Advocacy & Strategy at the Government Accountability Project, where she also leads GAP’s Democracy Protection Initiative, Gold has represented and worked with whistleblowers for more than 30 years.
She was honored for her accomplishments in a celebration at Sullivan Hall hosted by the law school in conjunction with the Womxn’s Law Caucus (WLC) and Womxn of Color Coalition (WOCC).
"That I am being honored by Seattle University School of Law, which has played an outsized role in supporting my professional evolution as a public interest lawyer, is especially meaningful,” Gold said as she accepted her award.
“Your career has reflected an extraordinary commitment to accountability and justice. We are profoundly grateful for your example and honored to have you with us this evening,” Dean Anthony E. Varona told Gold as he presented her with a commemorative plaque. “You are the embodiment of hope and justice, and the work you do is sacred.”
A desire to advocate for the underdog began early in Gold’s childhood. At age 7, when seeing 1976’s “King Kong” at the cinema, she was shocked to the point of tears by the idea that the government would blatantly lie. In another Hollywood-inspired moment, 9-year-old Gold was enthralled with the depiction of underpaid, mistreated factory workers unionizing in the 1979 film “Norma Rae.”
“These values, the power of truth and the power of speaking truth to promote government and corporate accountability, have been a compass,” she said.
Gold grew up in Maine but chose to attend Seattle U Law because GAP, where she began working in 1991, opened a Seattle office. While at the law school, she started the Public Interest Law Foundation (PILF) with Dean Emerita Kellye Testy, then a new professor, as advisor. PILF continues to provide grants every summer to enable students to work at nonprofits and other public interest organizations that provide aid to people in need of legal assistance and would not otherwise be able to afford an intern. Gold and Testy also started what would become the Berle Center on Corporations, Law, and Society in the early 2000s, when Gold was an adjunct professor.
The whistleblowers whom Gold has represented range from quality control officers pointing out explosion and national security risks at nuclear facilities, to employees revealing deadly contamination at a peanut plant, to climate scientists being censored by the government. During the first Trump administration, when the federal government began separating families at the border, Gold’s career turned toward immigration; she saw her own daughter, who was 9 at the time, in the faces of children torn from their parents.
“I was horrified,” Gold said. “I knew employees would want to speak up and I knew we could help them.”
Medical and mental health experts represented by Gold came forward to Congress and national news sources such as “60 Minutes” about the psychological harm caused by breaking up families and the poor standards of care at detention centers.
“Their first disclosures encouraged other whistleblowers,” Gold said. “Whistleblowers seem like they're just speaking out, but it takes an army to help them.”
Now, during the second Trump administration, Gold said she and her colleagues “have never been busier.”
“The issue of immigration lines up with democracy, because this administration is using immigration as one of its primary vehicles to undermine the rule of law,” Gold said.
Gold is currently representing Erez Reuveni, a former Department of Justice attorney who was fired for refusing to lie to a federal judge about Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was mistakenly deported to El Salvador last year, having evidence of gang membership. This case helped chip away at the Department of Justice’s credibility in the courtroom, which has “thrown sand in the gears of the machine working to do illegal things and brought others forward,” Gold said.
“Silence will do nothing, and this is something we can do. It is an honor to be able to make a difference as a public interest lawyer at this moment of history that we are in, in concert with so many other lawyers contributing their time, talent, and energy to protecting the vulnerable from abuses of power, using the rule of law to protect the rule of law,” she said. “I feel so lucky to have found my passion early and channel it for the larger public good. I am grateful that Seattle University School of Law has been such an integral part of my journey.”
At the close of the event, the WLC and WOCC presented Giannara Martell '26 with the Kellye Testy Scholarship for leadership, service, and a deep commitment to supporting women in the legal profession, and Mingyue Zhou '26 with the Justice G. Helen Whitener Scholarship for carrying forward a commitment to justice and inclusion.
“Every single one of you deserves a spot at the table. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise,” Martell said. “We need you at spaces that were not built for us.”