About a month into her tenure as executive director of ACLU of Colorado, Olivia Mendoza is anticipating one of her favorite days of the year: ACLU of Colorado’s annual Lobby Day on March 10.
Lobby Day connects Colorado ACLU members with the legislative process. “Policy doesn’t just happen under the Golden Dome,” she said. “Engaging with elected officials is a huge part of our democracy.”
Mendoza’s guiding principle for civil liberties work is one she returns to often: “It is not enough to understand the constitutional or statutory framework,” Mendoza said. “We have to understand who is impacted.”
From Undocumented Youth to Civil Rights Advocate
Mendoza’s care for impacted communities is rooted in her personal history. She grew up 
undocumented on a ranch in Wyoming and later in Colorado, unaware of the implications of policy debates on her life’s trajectory. An update in federal immigration law ultimately allowed her to obtain citizenship.
“I was a direct beneficiary of policy change,” she said. “That experience grounded me in the understanding that law is never abstract. It shapes real lives.”
That grounding, she said, informs her approach at ACLU of Colorado, even as immigration enforcement, voting access and executive authority again spearhead national debate.
National Guidance, State-Specific Strategy
As she settles into her new role at ACLU of Colorado, support from the national ACLU office has been “beyond my wildest dreams,” Mendoza said.
The work is collaborative. Teams from the national ACLU office provide guidance across priority areas, while state affiliates assess which issues are most pressing in their jurisdictions and tailor accordingly.
Case selection at the state level is likewise multifaceted, drawing on board input, legal panels, community partners and public intake submissions. With finite resources, ACLU of Colorado evaluates legal viability, impact and alignment with its mission before committing to litigation.
“It’s a holistic approach,” Mendoza said. “We don’t do this work alone.”
A Structural Understanding of Democracy
Prior to her career in law, Mendoza led a Colorado nonprofit supporting the Latino community. There, she said, “I saw policy advocacy can only go so far if structural barriers remain in place.”
Her subsequent leadership of the National Redistricting Foundation deepened that insight. “If our redistricting or electoral systems are not functioning in a way that serves the people, it becomes much more difficult to make meaningful policy change,” she said.
Litigation Priorities: Immigration, Elections and Accountability
At ACLU of Colorado, Mendoza’s immediate task is ensuring the organization has “the right strategies in place to meet the moment.”
Among the affiliate’s current priorities are lawsuits challenging warrantless immigration arrests and federal policies broadly denying bond eligibility. The organization is also pursuing transparency litigation related to a planned immigration detention expansion in Hudson, Colo.
Mendoza described these efforts as part of ACLU’s “firewall for freedom,” which aims to guard against governmental overreach that infringes on constitutional protections.
“Our role is to ensure that constitutional requirements are followed,” she said. “Accountability is not optional.”
Both the national ACLU office and ACLU of Colorado are monitoring voting rights, which Mendoza particularly “keeps a close eye on,” following her work with the National Redistricting Foundation.
At the same time, ACLU of Colorado is monitoring anti-LGBTQ+ executive actions, discriminatory practices in schools and privacy concerns tied to new technologies. “Civil rights are human rights,” she said. “That includes our interaction with technology.”
Once the legislative session wraps, ACLU of Colorado plans to expand regional outreach efforts across the state in preparation for November elections.
From the Community to the Classroom
This semester, Mendoza is teaching election law at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law, her alma mater. In the classroom, she makes a deliberate shift from traditional doctrinal analysis to “who is impacted?”
After examining case topics such as racial gerrymandering or the Voting Rights Act, she ends each class by asking, “Who won and who lost in real life?” She said, “I’m not talking about the parties involved. I’m talking about the individuals.”
Mendoza, a nontraditional law student who attended law school as a married mother of two young children, believes legal education underemphasizes the personal impact.
She also pointed to the structural barriers facing graduates who are considering careers in public service. Students eager to serve as “agents for change,” she noted, often confront daunting levels of debt that make nonprofit work financially untenable. She herself was able to attend law school and pursue a career in civil rights, thanks to a scholarship.
A Message to the Bar
In today’s political climate, Mendoza urged her fellow lawyers to consider pro bono work, volunteer clinics and partnerships with organizations addressing unmet legal needs.
“It’s easy to get bogged down in the day-to-day responsibilities of our profession,” she said. “But we are respected and important members of our community, and it is clear that our communities need access to free or low-cost legal support and legal advice. I would implore our profession to lean into that.”
For Mendoza, the through line is consistent: Whether in the courtroom, the classroom or the Capitol, the law must remain tethered to the individuals and communities it impacts, now and in the future.