On October 7, Catholic Law alumnus Craig W. Trainor ’05 was confirmed as the Assistant Secretary for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

In this role, Trainor will lead the HUD’s Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity (FHEO), overseeing efforts to eliminate housing discrimination nationwide and promote equal opportunity through vigorous enforcement of the Fair Housing Act and related civil rights laws. He will also serve as a senior advisor to HUD Secretary Scott Turner on matters involving fair housing, civil rights, equal opportunity, and economic development.

Before his confirmation, Trainor served at the U.S. Department of Education as both Acting Assistant Secretary and Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights. He previously served as Senior Special Counsel for the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary and its Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, under Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH). In that capacity, Trainor investigated issues involving the Biden Administration, the Intelligence Community, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the U.S. Department of Justice, including matters related to civil rights enforcement, free speech, and antisemitic harassment and violence on college campuses.

Trainor’s earlier experience includes serving as Senior Litigation Counsel with the America First Policy Institute, Of Counsel with the Fairness Center, and owning a civil rights and criminal defense practice in New York City for more than a decade. He began his legal career as a law clerk to Chief Judge Frederick J. Scullin, Jr., of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York, and then became an associate attorney at a white-collar criminal defense firm, and a prosecutor in New York City.