This quarter, as I approached the end of my time here at Northwestern, I found out about LIFT, a national movement to combat poverty and expand opportunity for all people here in the U.S. I immediately applied to become a volunteer, but I only wish I had found out about the organization earlier. LIFT provides…
Hope you have all had a great week(end)! The past few days have been absolutely perfect one for me – delicious cupcakes from Molly’s, a friend’s birthday celebrations, Dillo Day (annual day of fun, sun, and concerts from Regina Spektor, Guster, and Nelly at Northwestern), a trip to the Lincoln Park Zoo (although I am…
I recently finished “Indefensible: One Lawyer’s Journey into the Inferno of American Justice” by David Feige, who worked as a public defender in the Bronx for nearly fifteen years. It is a fascinating account of his work and the stories of the clients he represents. Perhaps my favorite quote from the entire book is the…
In a Legal Studies class I’m currently taking, I recently learned about an important problem relating to juvenile justice: the school-to-prison pipeline. While I was lucky enough to be living in an excellent school district, many other children in the U.S. simply don’t have that luxury. Today, the crisis of educational inequity in the U.S….
Path to Justice from Penal Reform International on Vimeo. This quarter, I’m interning with the Northwestern University Center on International Human Rights, a legal clinic in the law school. One of our projects is an access to justice project in Malawi, where we work to improve legal representation for prisoners – particularly those sentenced to…
I recently finished reading an amazing book, The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison: Ideology, Class, and Criminal Justice. The book itself has too many statistics and can be quite dry at times, but the strong message that resounds through its pages is truly powerful. It is a damning account of the utter…
I’ve read a lot of articles lately about Elena Kagan, who President Obama has recently nominated to the Supreme Court, and her incredible ambition. Her career path has been one of a single-minded focus on her ultimate career goal: becoming Supreme Court justice. Even at the young age of 17, she posed for her high…
Recently, through a particularly enlightening conversation with a friend, I realized that there are, essentially, two pathways or methods of thinking about social change and development approaches. There is the “capitalistic” mode of thinking, and the “social justice” mode of thinking. While this is, essentially, the split that so starkly separates the Democrats from the…
