Squire Patton Boggs Foundation is pleased to announce the 2022 Sustained Impact Racial Justice Fellowship, welcoming three outstanding and dedicated law students to the program.
In response to the heightened consciousness around systemic racism and racial injustice, the Squire Patton Boggs Foundation in 2021 created and funded a Racial Justice Fellowship Program focusing on three critical areas: Black community-police relations; voting rights; and juvenile justice in minority communities.
Foundation President John Oberdorfer said, “in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd, the Foundation and its Deans’ Circle decided to take a sustained action to address racial injustice. The Racial Justice Fellowship program in 2021 had a strong and positive impact, and we look forward to that continued impact from this year’s Fellows.”
The Racial Justice Fellowship is the second initiative within the Foundation’s Sustained Impact Fellowship program, designed to provide pro bono legal services over a multi-year period to address a seemingly intractable problem. The Sustained Impact Fellowship – Puerto Rico, now in its fourth year, focuses on post-hurricane disaster relief and community rebuilding by partnering with two organizations in San Juan, Centro para Puerto Rico and Ayuda Legal Puerto Rico.
The Sustained Impact Fellowship program runs in tandem with the Foundation’s signature Public Policy Fellowship Program that includes 18 US law schools and the Collège d΄Europe in Bruges, Belgium, as well as its Pulitzer Center Fellowship, in which the Foundation and Case Western Reserve University Law School partner with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting on a Fellowship focusing on law and journalism. The Foundation has created a new Veterans Justice Fellowship Program, partnering with the preeminent veterans organization, Swords & Plowshares in San Francisco.
The three Fellows who were selected for the 2022 Racial Justice Fellowship Program are:
Kaitlin Naylor, the Dedman School of Law at Southern Methodist University, will work on building and improving police/minority community relations with the Citizens Complaint Authority in Cincinnati. An undergraduate at the Texas Tech College of Business, Kaitlin expressed eloquently her “passion and drive to facilitate change”, driven in part by her experience of growing up in a mixed community with friends of color who experienced racial discrimination.
Abigail Young, University of Miami School of Law, will work on the voting rights project of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights under Law. Abigail’s prior internships with the Innocence Project and the Harvard Legal Aid Bureau, together with her studies and her service as an editor of her law school’s Race and Social Justice Review, demonstrate her strong commitment to protecting the right to vote for communities of color.
Marcus Montgomery, University of Arkansas School of Law, will work for the Lone Star Justice Alliance on juvenile justice in minority communities in Texas. Marcus has received many academic awards. Between college and law school, he worked for the Arab Center in Washington. That experience, plus tutoring immigrants in English and his modest upbringing propel Marcus’ interest in public policy and civil rights.