Patricia Gándara has been a bilingual school psychologist, a Social Scientist with the RAND Corporation, she has directed education research in the California Legislature, and from 1990 until her retirement she was a Professor of Education in the University of California system. She has also served as Commissioner for Post-secondary Education for the State of California. For nine years she was Associate Director of the Linguistic Minority Research Institute and is currently Co-Director of the Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles at UCLA.