Noreen Farrell

Noreen Farrell helped lead Mansourian v. Regents of the University of California, in which women wrestlers challenged UC Davis under Title IX after being denied equal athletic opportunity. The case produced a trial victory, a $1.35 million settlement, and changes to the university’s athletics program. Farrell sought enforcement of the university’s duty to provide equal participation in athletics when setting rosters and access to competition.

In Brust v. Regents of the University of California, another Title IX athletics matter, Farrell helped obtain terms adding a women's field hockey team and improving equal athletic opportunity.

The Price of Speaking Up

Farrell secured a $2.46 million jury verdict in Maher v. County of Fresno, a sex-discrimination case arising out of a fire academy, and an approximately $812,000 jury verdict in Bojorquez v. ABM Industries, a workplace sexual-harassment case. In Medina v. Station Casinos, a sexual-harassment matter, her work contributed to a multimillion-dollar settlement. Her employment practice addresses compensation, workplace treatment, and retaliation against employees who report discrimination. Her advocacy for women and girls facing discrimination at work and at school has reached every level of the federal system, including the United States Supreme Court. She has also written for practitioners on class certification after Wal-Mart v. Dukes in a Thomson Reuters publication.

Farrell graduated from Yale University and earned her law degree at the University of California, Hastings College of the Law, where she was editor-in-chief of the Hastings Women's Law Journal. At Equal Rights Advocates, the San Francisco gender-justice organization, she rose to legal director and then executive director. Under her leadership, the organization has represented thousands of women and girls and pursued changes in discrimination law and enforcement.

One Statute, Fifty Statehouses

In 2015, Equal Rights Advocates co-sponsored the California Fair Pay Act, which Farrell helped develop. By 2025, California's wage gap had narrowed to roughly 13 percent, compared with a national figure closer to 18 percent. Settlements with major employers had returned more than $500 million to workers; twenty-five states had strengthened their own equal pay laws, and more than a dozen had adopted pay transparency requirements modeled on California’s approach. "Ten years later, we've proven that this is a blueprint that works," Farrell said in 2025, "and states across the country agree."

Rules Written for the People Who Use Them

Equal Rights Advocates joined the Victim Rights Law Center, the Chicago Alliance Against Sexual Exploitation, Legal Voice, and survivors as plaintiffs challenging federal Title IX regulations governing campus sexual-harassment proceedings. The plaintiffs were represented by Morrison & Foerster, the National Women's Law Center, and Diane Rosenfeld. In July 2021, a federal court in Massachusetts directed the Department of Education to reconsider a provision barring key evidence, including police reports, medical records, and admissions, from consideration at hearings. The court said the provision made proceedings a "remarkably hollow gesture" for survivors.

Under Farrell's leadership, ERA also co-sponsored California's AB 1928, the Campus Counsel and Care Act, signed in August 2026. The law requires colleges and universities to permit each party in a campus sexual-misconduct grievance process to be accompanied by both an advisor and a support person, rather than making someone choose between technical guidance and emotional support during the proceeding.

Enforcement as Education

Farrell has written about accommodating pregnant workers in Expecting a Baby, Not a Lay-Off and about family-responsibilities discrimination under Title VII, the Family and Medical Leave Act, and the Americans with Disabilities Act. Her publications include Ending Harassment Now: Keeping Our Kids Safe at School, a three-part assessment of women's progress marking Title VII’s fiftieth anniversary, and an argument in the Hastings Law Journal for legislation addressing discrimination against employees with caregiving responsibilities. She testifies before legislative bodies. Her commentary appears in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and Fortune, and on NPR, PBS NewsHour, and MSNBC.

The State-Law Backstop

Farrell chairs Equal Pay Today, a coalition of more than two dozen organizational partners coordinating state-by-state efforts to close gender and race wage gaps. She founded and chairs the Stronger California Women's Agenda Campaign, which by January 2026 brought together more than sixty-five nonprofit and advocacy organizations working on pay, child care, leave, workplace protections, and women's economic security. As a founding partner of the Closing the Women's Wealth Gap Initiative, she also works on disparities in assets, savings, and long-term financial security.

At Stronger California's January 2026 convening in Sacramento, the network marked nine 2025 priority bills that had been signed into law. One, AB 250, extended filing deadlines for sexual-assault claims to account for delays associated with trauma and fear of retaliation. Farrell has described state protections as a defense when federal safeguards weaken; at the convening, she said California measures had already provided a model for other states and that the network had supported their replication elsewhere.