Cruz Reynoso, professor emeritus of law, has been appointed to President-elect Obama’s Justice and Civil Rights Agency Review Team. Reynoso will help lead a review of key federal departments, agencies and commissions, as well as the White House.

The review will provide the Obama-Biden Transition Team with information needed to make policy, budgetary and personnel decisions prior to Obama’s Jan. 20 inauguration.

Reynoso is an internationally known civil rights leader, the first Latino to sit on the California Supreme Court, and a 2000 recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor.

He has served as associate general counsel to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunities Commission, as a member of the Select Commission on Immigration and Human Rights, and as vice chair of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. He joined the UC Davis law school faculty in 2001.

Reynoso is among several UC Davis faculty who have been tapped to advise Obama. During the campaign, law school dean Kevin R. Johnson and law professors Jennifer Chacon and Bill Ong Hing all served as members of Obama’s immigration policy advisory group.