Kimberly Walton
Assistant Administrator for Civil Rights & Liberties, Ombudsman, and Travel Engagement
Kimberly Walton is the Assistant Administrator for Civil Rights & Liberties, Ombudsman and Traveler Engagement (CRL/OTE) at the Transportation Security Administration (TSA).
Her office is responsible for ensuring that TSA employees and the traveling public are treated in a fair and lawful manner, consistent with federal laws and regulations protecting privacy, affording redress, governing freedom of information and prohibiting discrimination and reprisal, while promoting diversity and inclusion. To support this mission, CRL/OTE provides services and functions through a Business Management Office and five Divisions, including Disability and Multicultural, Civil Rights, Diversity and Inclusion, Ombudsman and Traveler Engagement.
Since joining TSA in January 2003, Walton has served as the TSA Ombudsman, Deputy Special Counselor and then Special Counselor, where she served as the principal advisor to the TSA Administrator on all matters involving civil rights and liberties, equal opportunity, disability, privacy, and diversity issues.
Before joining TSA in January 2003, Walton served as the Deputy Chief Administrative Officer for the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). In this position, she provided resource management support to the Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the USPTO. Before joining the USPTO, Walton was Director of Civil Rights for the U.S. Department of Commerce. In this role she advised the Secretary of Commerce, Deputy Secretary and other department senior staff on all equal employment opportunity, diversity and civil rights matters. She also chaired the department's diversity council. Before joining Commerce, Walton was an attorney with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
She has received a Department of Homeland Security Secretary’s Award for Diversity Management, TSA Silver Medal Award, a TSA Core Values Award, and a U.S. Department of Commerce Silver Medal Award. Most recently, she completed the National and International Security Program at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government.
Walton holds a law degree from the Catholic University of America's Columbus School of Law and is a member of the District of Columbia Bar. She studied psychology at the University of Tennessee and organizational psychology at Columbia University.
