Associate Administrator for Civil Rights

Selene Faer Dalton-Kumins was selected to be Associate Administrator for FTA’s Office of Civil Rights in September 2018. Ms. Dalton-Kumins leads staff in FTA’s headquarters and regional offices in technical assistance and training, complaint investigation, and on-site compliance reviews to ensure public transit providers fulfill nondiscrimination requirements under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), U.S. Department of Transportation’s Disadvantaged Business Enterprise Program and FTA’s Equal Employment Opportunity Program. She also oversees FTA’s internal civil rights compliance program.

Ms. Dalton-Kumins joined FTA in March 2011 as Deputy Director for Civil Rights. In 2012, she became the Director of the Office of Program Oversight. In that position, Ms. Dalton-Kumins led a multidisciplinary federal team and 20 contractor teams working closely with FTA Regional Offices to carry out FTA’s oversight program for the more than $12 billion in annual federal support to approximately 900 public transportation systems throughout the United States. This included approximately 300 annual oversight reviews conducted through FTA’s Triennial, State Management, Procurement System, and Financial Management Oversight review programs. She was appointed to the position of Acting Associate Administrator Office of Civil Rights in March 2017.

Engaged in public transit since 2002, Ms. Dalton-Kumins began her career at the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA), advising executives on accessible system and vehicle design, developing policy, training operations personnel, and implementing a travel-training program to reduce paratransit dependency by familiarizing 800+ customers per year with fixed-route options. Subsequently, Ms. Dalton-Kumins was appointed the Director of MetroAccess, WMATA’s paratransit mode. Steering the nation’s sixth-largest ADA paratransit service from 2007 to 2011, she directed a 24-hour transit operation that provided 2.4 million trips annually across eight jurisdictions in Washington, DC, Maryland, and Virginia, and oversaw the scheduling, dispatch, as well as maintenance of a 599-vehicle dedicated fleet supported by a 1,250+ workforce. In this capacity, she led fundamental changes in WMATA’s paratransit service operations and policy to address rising ridership and costs, legal compliance concerns, and customer satisfaction challenges.

Ms. Dalton-Kumins received an A.B. from Duke University and a law degree from Emory University School of Law.