Welcome Summer Intern Katia Apedoh

,

“Alabama Appleseed is a natural bridge between the diversity, equity, and inclusion work that I have done in high school and what I plan to do in college. I am so grateful to Appleseed for the opportunity to learn about the problems that impact justice-involved people in Alabama and see what it means to be an advocate!”

Katia Apedoh just graduated from Hoover High School, where she served as leadership for Student Diversity Council, captained Ethics Bowl, and received her International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma. Katia was very active with diversity work within the Hoover City Schools District, even developing a diversity initiative for teachers for which she received the 2024 Alabama Princeton Prize in Race Relations. In the fall, Katia will attend Washington and Lee University where she plans to double major in English and Politics with a minor in Law, Justice, and Society. Katia hopes to attend law school.

/0 Comments/by

Welcome Summer Intern London Breedlove

My name is London Breedlove and I am so excited for the opportunity I have been given to intern with Alabama Appleseed this summer! A Mississippi native, I was brought to Alabama on a tennis scholarship at the University of Montevallo. There I am a rising senior majoring in Political Science and minoring in prelaw. I immediately fell in love with the campus and my professors who created a safe academic atmosphere and close-knit community for my classmates and me. In my political science classes, I have learned the intricacies of Alabama’s state and local governments, as well as their Department of Corrections.

My interest in criminal justice reform sparked through my education where I learned the unconstitutionality of Alabama’s prisons as well as their significant recidivism rate due to lack of reentry programs. In my Public Policy class in particular, we were given policy briefs done by researchers at Alabama Appleseed that examined excessive fines and sentencing, illustrating the institutional injustices adopted by the State. Working closely with their materials allowed me to have a better understanding of the work that this nonprofit does as well as the meaningful connections they create with their clients. I knew from this class that I wanted to work with an organization like theirs, so when I was given the opportunity to be an intern here I immediately took it.

I am so grateful to intern at a place like Alabama Appleseed whose mission is to provide resources and care for those who have been neglected by our governmental systems. I hope to gain my law degree so that I can work in public service and be a voice for those whose rights have been stripped.

/0 Comments/by

Welcome Legal Extern Tayler Walton

 

My name is Tayler Walton and I have the absolute privilege of working for Alabama Appleseed this summer as their legal intern. I am a rising 3L at Cumberland School of Law and I could not be more ecstatic to be working for an organization like Appleseed. I went into law school wanting to own my own Second Chance nonprofit and the week of my law school orientation– Mrs. Carla Crowder came to my school to talk about Alabama Appleseed and it felt like a sign that I was where I needed to be.

I come from a family of servitude and it has always been a passion of mine to serve in some way but it was not until freshman year of undergrad that I knew specifically what my passions were. I had taken a sociology course called Deviant Behavior and that class taught me about the disparities, gaps and injustice within our criminal justice system. I grew up very sheltered and was unaware of the struggles that Black and Brown people combat everyday. That one undergrad class is what ignited my fire to want to become a lawyer and be a part of the change I wanted to see. Not only this but representation matters. The people most affected by the system look like me and my family and the impact that representation can have for these men and women who have their spirits broken time and time again is unquantifiable.

My purpose in this life is to be a voice for the voiceless and it is people like Mrs. Crowder and organizations like Appleseed that have provided me an opportunity to do so. Working for Appleseed is a once in a lifetime opportunity. To be a part of an organization that challenges the status quo– magnifies injustice, as well as provides solutions to the injustice has been life changing. This organization is a family through and through and I can only hope to continue to be a part of it for years to come.

I am so grateful for this opportunity to work with Alabama Appleseed. I will continue to be a sponge and absorb as much as I can from this experience and hopefully in the near future I can create a sister organization to Appleseed that fights the system alongside it.

/0 Comments/by

Welcome Extern Erin Nicole Smith!

,

My name is Erin Nicole Smith and I am humbled to work at Alabama Appleseed as a Policy Extern. I am currently a 2L at The University of Alabama School of Law and am seeking opportunities to embrace social justice activism. I have a bachelor’s degree in Spanish and minored in Political Science from Oakwood University, where I learned to embrace our motto: “Enter to Learn, Depart to Serve.” I plan to do just that as an aspiring attorney and it starts with community. 

My interest in criminal justice reform was piqued after choosing to do a research paper on mass incarceration my junior year of high school. I had never encountered that term before, so I explored avenues to learn more about the topic. Through my research, I was exposed to 13th, a documentary produced by Ava Duvernay. I was shocked to learn about the conditions of U.S. prisons and how African Americans are disproportionately funneled into the prison system. Also, I learned how in the U.S. a new form of slavery has been invented by depriving those who are incarcerated of their basic human rights. Michelle Alexander’s book, “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness,” sheds light on the various tools used to oppress minorities. These tools included the rhetoric of ‘law and order’, declaring the War on Drugs, and projecting an abundance of stereotypical images of minorities in the media. 

During my time at Oakwood University, I was able to encounter experiences that confirmed my desire to become an attorney. When I studied abroad in Sagunto, Spain, I developed a deeper level of empathy for how immigrants feel when placed in a new environment while having a language barrier. The experience allowed me to be more aware of the struggles that minority communities face inside the U.S. Upon my return, I took classes that further informed me of issues present in America. These classes included U.S. Constitutional Law, Public Policy, Special Topics in Law, State and Local Government, and American Diplomacy. One of my favorite classes was Social Justice Advocacy because we discussed how race affects the law. 

In law school, my passion to do public interest work has stemmed from my interest in the intersectionality between race and the law. After working as a legislative intern my junior year of college, I developed a love for policy because it opened my eyes to a new way of implementing far-reaching change. My goal is to combine both the fields of law and policy into my career. Alabama Appleseed gives me the avenue to explore these facets. 

I learned about Alabama Appleseed after attending an admitted student session with The University of Alabama School of Law. I was connected to Akiesha Anderson, an alum of the law school and the former Policy Director of Alabama Appleseed. Because my interest in policy was new, I had never heard of anyone else starting their law school journey with the knowledge that policy was their end goal. It was really amazing to talk to another Black woman about our passions and interests to help others through policy. Fast forward to now, I am honored to be a part of this organization and further the mission “to achieve justice and equality for all Alabamians.”

/0 Comments/by

Welcome Intern Ella Cobbs

,

My name is Ella Cobbs, and I am so incredibly excited to be interning with Alabama Appleseed this summer! I am a rising senior at Sewanee: The University of the South pursuing an English major, minors in Politics and French, and a certificate in Civic and Global Leadership. 

I have lived in Birmingham, Alabama for the majority of my life, and as I have grown into adulthood as an Alabamian, I have experienced a complicated relationship with my state. As an Alabamian, I have witnessed how deeply certain inequalities are entrenched within our State. I have come to understand the history of violence against those most vulnerable in our State. I have also felt defeated by how difficult it seems to attain progress in our State. But as an Alabamian, I have been privileged to live in a place immersed in a deep history of social justice and civil rights victories. I have the opportunity to engage in the vast web of coalitions and organizations dedicated to pursuing progress for all Alabamians. And now I am incredibly grateful to work first-hand within these coalitions as an Alabama Appleseed Intern.

Because I love Alabama I want to see the state become more equitable for all its inhabitants. For me, this starts with addressing issues within the Alabama Criminal Justice System. Through my education at Sewanee and outside engagements, I have found my passion lies in improving the criminal justice system in Alabama and in America. I hope to attend law school after my college graduation, and for me, Alabama Appleseed is the perfect introduction to the legal and advocacy work required to make substantial changes. This summer I will be taking on the role of Community Organizing Intern. In this position I have the privilege of aiding in activism surrounding the prison and criminal justice crisis in the state. Alabama Appleseed is doing the exact work I want to be doing in the future, and I am very grateful that this internship has allowed me to join a team making real, tangible change for Alabamians.

/0 Comments/by

Welcome to Intern Justin McCleskey

,

I’m Justin McCleskey and I’m excited to start my internship with Alabama Appleseed over the summer! I completed my bachelors degree in political science at the University of Alabama and am in my second year as a master’s student in public administration.

As a first generation college student, I have to admit I stumbled into academia rather naively. I knew that I wanted to use my education to help others, but my interests seemed extremely broad at the time. Among my values, economic and legal reform began to reach the forefront, but I was still discovering how I could meaningfully contribute through debate, student government, and other areas of campus involvement.

In my master’s classes, I developed an affinity for public budgeting and data analysis, seeing it as a route to create solid arguments for effective reform. Along the way, I began watching a new student group, Alabama Students Against Prisons (ASAP), from afar. I was drawn in by their protests urging Regions Bank to divest funding from CoreCivic’s three new prison initiatives, but their strategies resonated deeply with me.

Using economic and legal approaches, ASAP established common-sense arguments against the creation of new prisons while recognizing a need for rehabilitation and changing laws to address overpopulation. Their success in blocking funding revealed a major route to effective change in Alabama; rational policy approaches precede political messaging.

Learning how my skills and interests intersect with Alabama’s criminal justice struggles, I saw a route to make this state a home for everyone. I’ll be using my time at Alabama Appleseed to research the correlation between Alabama’s aging prison populations and growing expenditures to find a solution. I hope to learn from the communities I work with while gaining professional insight that I can use to make Alabama a more welcoming environment for all!

/0 Comments/by

Appleseed Welcomes Intern Mercedes Davis

,

My name is Mercedes Davis, and it is with so much gratitude that I announce my internship with Alabama Appleseed this summer. I am a rising 2L at Cumberland School of Law and hold a bachelor’s degree in Criminal Justice from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. 

My interest in criminal justice reform, specifically prison reform, began in the middle of my undergrad journey when I learned about Kalief Browder. In 2010, a 16-year-old Kalief was arrested for allegedly stealing a backpack containing certain valuables. At the time of his arrest, a judge set his bail to $3,000 and with his family not able to afford his $900 bond, Browder was sent off to Rikers Island. Two and a half months after entering Rikers, Browder appeared in front of a judge who consequently remanded him without bail because his arrest was a violation of his probation. Even if his family could have raised the money for his release, this judgment made bail no longer an option, and he was held at Rikers Island for three years without a trial. A backlog in the Bronx DA’s Office, combined with continuance upon continuance, amounted to Browder appearing before eight judges and nearly 1,000 days passing—more than 700 of those days in solitary confinement. Browder experienced violence at the hands of inmates and officers alike, and he attempted suicide numerous times while in prison.

On May 29, 2013, a judge freed Browder in anticipation of dismissal of the outstanding charges. Once released, he passed the GED exam and enrolled in Bronx Community College thereafter. Yet the horrors of solitary confinement and carceral violence Browder experienced at Rikers persisted, and he was admitted to a psychiatric ward three times after his release. On June 6, 2015, Browder died by suicide. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy cited Mr. Browder’s experience in the 2015 Supreme Court decision Davis v. Ayala as an indicator of a necessary “consideration of the many issues solitary confinement presents.”  

Learning about Kalief Browder’s experience with the criminal justice system forever changed my view of the American justice system. The horrors he faced that ultimately led to his death, opened my eyes to the ugly truth about criminal justice—how the system perpetuates trauma for those intertwined in the legal system as well as the greater community rather than resolve and rehabilitate. For me, his story brought to light the deficiencies in mental health resources necessary for successful reintegration and the reality that many of our prisons operate as breeding grounds for ongoing, generational trauma. 

As I began to delve into the world of prison reform, I couldn’t help but discover the horrific state of Alabama’s prison system. The issues that often make national headlines are in my own backyard. Learning about the DOJ’s ongoing investigation into Alabama’s prisons and mental health conditions litigation provided insight into the living conditions incarcerated individuals in Alabama are subjected to. The penal system that we have in place, in simple terms, is a big bully; and the bullied are the disenfranchised, the poor, and Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC). The more I learn, the greater my interest becomes in addressing criminal justice issues and human rights violations right here in Alabama.

Since becoming interested in criminal justice reform, I have volunteered with Aid to Inmate Mothers where I saw firsthand how maintaining and strengthening family connections can produce positive societal outcomes, such as reduced recidivism and healthy child development. I was also able to observe how the other side of the legal system worked during an internship with DA Lynneice Washington. I sat in on trials, learned about resources that help Jefferson County youth entering foster care, and researched programs with the potential to combat overcrowding in our jails and prisons for misdemeanors. Those experiences combined with my education in Criminal Justice and Sociology, have allowed me to better understand the intersectionality of the harmed and the harm inflicted by our criminal justice. I am eager for the opportunity I have at Appleseed to gain further understanding. 

My goal for this summer is to learn as much as I can from Alabama Appleseed on how to fight for this state—working towards a better Alabama and protecting the Alabamians who need it most.

/0 Comments/by

Appleseed Welcomes New Legal Extern Brenita Softley

, ,

My name is Brenita Softley, and I am deeply honored to join Alabama Appleseed as a part-time extern. I am in awe of this organization’s mission to achieve justice and equity for all Alabamians— which are reasons that I decided to attend law school.

My interest in the legal realm sparked with the death of Trayvon Martin. I knew that our system was unfair, but this realization hit differently when I noticed the criminal legal system telling someone that looked like me and was the same age as me that their life did not matter. I noticed that even when Black people were killed, they were always treated as the aggressor. Realizing this, I wanted to advocate for the most marginalized in society. Throughout my law school journey, I realized that criminal defense was the best way for me to do this. 

The summer following my first year of law school was historical for two reasons: our nation was fighting two pandemics at the same time—COVID 19 and racial injustice. Don’t get me wrong, racial injustice has always been a problem in our country…especially since the original sin of our country was slavery. However, the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor sparked a more modern nationwide movement. Inspired by their deaths, my classmate and I started a podcast entitled “Welcome to My America” where we discussed racial injustice and how to combat it. That summer, I expounded on this mission when I interned at the Tuscaloosa County Public Defenders’ Office. In my work there, I realized how our criminal legal system oppresses the poor. A lot of our clients were homeless or barely had enough income to sustain themselves. Yet, they were required to pay hundreds of dollars in court costs and fines. I also realized that many of our clients often resorted to crime out of necessity due to being impoverished. However, the law did not care. I made a vow to make sure that would change.

During my second year of law school, I interned with the Children’s Rights Clinic where I saw the school to prison pipeline play out. As an intern in the clinic, my job was to draft individualized education plans, ensure that my clients received appropriate educational services, and highlight mitigating arguments to the court. It was in my internship with The Southern Center for Human Rights that I realized just how important mitigation is. During my internship, I was assigned to two capital cases. Many of our clients had committed their crimes for  reasons such as PTSD, poverty, or the inability to understand right from wrong. What was most heartbreaking was that one of our clients was innocent. When I visited him in prison, I was amazed at how much we had in common. I didn’t expect us to have family from the same small town of Florence, Alabama. I didn’t expect him to have a daughter that was in the same sorority as me or who went to the same school that I did. I didn’t expect him to have the same smile and glow as my dad as he was telling me about his daughter’s accomplishments. I also didn’t expect him to tell me that his source of hope was waking up each day and seeing 14 bars since this reminds him that he woke up to see another day. This client was sent to death row because of systemic injustice and racial bias that permeates the criminal legal system in Alabama. These are issues that Alabama Appleseed confronts in its work. 

Each of these experiences gave me insight into the issues that plague our criminal legal system. During my final year of law school, I was able to use these various experiences in acting as a student attorney in the University of Alabama School of Law’s Criminal Defense Clinic. In the clinic, my classmates and I represented Tuscaloosa residents accused of crimes under the supervision of our professor.  I was able to participate in various plea negotiations, draft motions, and make oral arguments to the court. Fighting zealously for my clients solidified my interest in criminal justice reform since I realized just how imbalanced our criminal legal system is—in the words of Paul Butler, it is designed for poor people and minorities to lose.

As a lifelong resident of Alabama, I want our state to improve and have a just criminal legal system. A criminal legal system that does not perpetuate racial disparities in arrests or sentencing. One that does not hinder the rights of the accused. One that does not cause minorities to question whether police are there to kill them or protect and serve. And one that does not punish people for simply being poor. This is something that Alabama Appleseed fights for each day by examining laws and policies through a lens of poverty and racial injustice. I am honored to use my experiences to help them in this fight.

/0 Comments/by

Introducing Appleseed’s legal extern Allen Slater

,

By Allen Slater

My name is Allen Slater, and I am honored to join Alabama Appleseed as a full-time extern. I admire this organization’s mission, methodology, and compassion, and I am thrilled to contribute to the team. I am also eternally grateful to all of the kind, intelligent people who have supported and encouraged me along my journey to this position.

My path to Alabama Appleseed was a long, winding one that began in Kansas, where I started my career in law enforcement. Over the course of two years, I served as a corrections officer and a rural sheriff’s deputy in the northeastern part of the state. The next part of my career took me to a mid-sized city in Tennessee, where I served as a municipal police officer for nearly three years. My service as a police officer was rewarding, but not without difficulties. I saw the realities and trauma of violence and poverty collide with race and gender issues constantly, and at times, my job felt like using my fingers to plug holes in a dam that was on the verge of collapse. I saw many of the same people for the same issues on a regular basis; I felt less like a guardian of the community than a cog in a large, unyielding machine. That feeling made me question the way that we deployed law enforcement resources, the structure and purpose of some of our laws, and why some communities received different kinds and qualities of policing than others.

Appleseed’s 2021 legal extern Allen Slater

The questions I wrestled came to a head in 2014 with the deaths of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri and Eric Garner in New York City. Those deaths and their aftermath shook me — I knew that we needed serious, systemic changes to make policing fairer, safer, and more transparent, but didn’t know what I could do to help. After some soul searching, I asked myself what I later discovered was a very old question: who guards the guards? In other words, who polices the police? I realized that the best way that I could have a positive impact — to continue helping, protecting, and serving others — would be attending law school and becoming an attorney. As a lawyer, I could to use my previous professional knowledge and experience to advocate for necessary change in the criminal justice system. Attending the University of Alabama School of Law has allowed me to pursue that goal and more.

During law school, I have been fortunate to work with a variety of brilliant attorneys on civil rights, police transparency, and criminal justice reform issues.  During my first summer, I worked as an intern with the Office of the Federal Defender for the Northern District of Florida. There, I fought for the constitutional rights of clients on death row by providing legal research and investigative support for the office’s Capital Habeas Unit. I also was privileged to work as an intern and Student Legal Fellow for The Policing Project at NYU School of Law. In that position, I researched pre-arrest diversion alternatives for a state government that was searching for opportunities to increase public safety while lowering its prison population. Additionally, I conducted extensive research into the use of biometric technologies by law enforcement, which culminated in a series of blog posts.  I was also able to work with the Alabama ACLU on a variety of civil rights issues, ranging from law enforcement misconduct to First Amendment legal questions. Law school also gave me the opportunity to work behind the scenes of the courtroom as an extern for a federal judge in the Northern District of Alabama. I also had the privilege of working for the conviction integrity unit of a district attorney’s office, investigating potential wrongful convictions and providing legal research for law enforcement misconduct prosecutions. Additionally, I was able to publish an academic article proposing a new standard for evaluating police shootings in the Berkeley Journal of African-American Law & Policy. These experiences have broadened and enriched my perspective, giving me deeper insights into the systemic issues plaguing our justice system.

I took those insights with me to the University of Alabama School of Law’s Criminal Defense Clinic at the beginning of my final year of law school. In that program, I, in partnership with a fellow law student, represented clients accused of crimes in Tuscaloosa County under the supervision of our professor. My partner and I also engaged in post-conviction advocacy for a terminally ill client, securing his release from the custody of the Alabama Department of Corrections. My experience fighting for my clients fueled my commitment to criminal justice reform as I realized that the system — and the racial, gender, and class disparities that it aggravates — must be reshaped in order to serve all of us properly. We need a criminal justice system that delivers accountability hand-in-hand with mercy and rehabilitation.

Part of what drew me to Alabama Appleseed was the organization’s approach to criminal justice reform. Appleseed has pursued data driven, effective policies to enhance public safety, build public trust, and respect the inherent value of every person involved in the justice system. Whether advocating for marijuana law reforms or ensuring that sheriffs cannot enrich themselves by starving prisoners and pocketing taxpayer dollars, Appleseed has fought to improve Alabama’s criminal justice system in concrete ways.

Alabama Appleseed’s work also does something less concrete, but equally important: each legal and policy success builds a criminal justice system worthy of public trust in Alabama. My experiences, both as a police officer and as a budding attorney, have shown me that all criminal justice systems are an institutions dependent on public trust. History has shown us that Alabama’s criminal justice system — its police, courts, and prisons — have sometimes squandered that trust in the name of racism, greed, or neglect. To restore that lost trust, Alabama’s victims and defendants need the criminal justice system to show them agency, compassion, and dignity. They need a system that is fair, legitimate, and free of bias; one that protects and respects their humanity and their rights as a priority, rather than an afterthought. Building a better criminal justice system in Alabama requires many people working together in pursuit of a better tomorrow, and I am excited to play my part through my role at Alabama Appleseed.

 

/by

Appleseed Welcomes 2020 Class of Summer Interns

Our team at Alabama Appleseed is pleased to be working with several terrific students this summer. Through remote internships, these students are advancing the cause for justice in Alabama and helping us with research, writing, data collection, policy analysis, and more. The passion, dedication, and skill of these students brightens the future.

We are proud to welcome these students who are working with us to build a better Alabama:

Adelaide Beckman (The University of Alabama School of Law)

Adelaide Beckman is a second year student at the University of Alabama School of Law. Born into a military family, she has lived in eight states and two countries. In 2015, she graduated from the University of Alabama at Birmingham with a degree in Communication Studies. Afterwards, she joined Teach For America and worked as a public school teacher in Cincinnati, Ohio, for two years. In 2019, she joined the UA Law School Class of 2022 as a Dean’s Scholar.​

Nefsa’Hyatt Brown (Alabama State University)

Nefsa’Hyatt Brown is a rising senior at Alabama State University majoring in Political Science with a minor in International Relations, Foreign Policy, and Global Studies. She is from Mobile, and as a native of Alabama, she have witnessed how various institutions within the American governmental system disenfranchise certain populations, specifically people of color and those who are impoverished, which has led to her interest in a career in the public sector. Upon graduation, Nefsa’Hyatt plans on going to graduate school to pursue her master’s degree and eventually become a foreign service officer for the United States.

Corryn Carter (Alabama State University)

Corryn Carter is a rising junior Communications major with a minor in Political Science at Alabama State University. She currently serves as the Alabama Youth and College NAACP Juvenile Justice chair and was the 2019-2020 Juvenile Justice Chair for her university chapter of NAACP.

Isabel Coleman (Yale University)

Isabel Coleman grew up in Birmingham Alabama. She studies philosophy and competes on the debate team at Yale University. Ultimately, she hopes to move back to the South and pursue a career in legal advocacy. She is most passion about prison reform and other efforts to address structural inequality.

Alli Koszyk (The University of Alabama School of Law)

Allison Koszyk is a Chicago-Area native who came down South in 2015 for undergrad and never left. She earned her undergraduate and graduate degrees in Hospitality Management from the University of Alabama, and will begin her second year of law school in Tuscaloosa, this fall. Allison is on the Advisory Board for the Blackburn Institute, serves as Senator for the law school in the Student Government association. She is the Secretary for Outlaw, and the Director of Communications for the UA Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild. She has adopted y’all, and considers herself a Southerner by choice. Allison strives to fight injustice in all its forms and wants the rest of the world to start recognizing the good work that is being done here in the name of equality and justice.

Hannah Krawczyk (Auburn University)

Hannah Krawczyk is a junior working on a degree in the accelerated Bachelors and Masters of Public Administration program at Auburn University. She is on the board of the League of Women Voters of East Alabama, and works on the Auburn Justice Coalition leadership team. Her interests in advocacy and research began after arriving in Alabama for university, and engaging with friends on-campus in advocacy and education projects.
.
Imani Richardson (Yale University)
Imani Richardson is from Birmingham, Alabama. She is a rising senior at a Yale University, where she majors in African Studies and Political Science. On campus, she is involved with a number of cultural, advocacy, and service organizations, including Urban Improvement Corps and Yale Black Women’s Coalition, and after graduation, she hopes to pursue a career in public policy and advocacy. This summer, Imani is interning at Alabama Appleseed because she is committed to challenging the forces and narratives that have driven mass incarceration, economic oppression, and racial injustice more broadly by advocating for justice and change at the legal, legislative, and grassroots levels. She believes that in working alongside and demanding better for our society’s most vulnerable and discriminated against, we create a more just, more equitable society for all of us.

Renuka Srivastava (The University of Alabama at Birmingham)

A native of Meridian, Mississippi, Renuka has always held a special place for the South in her heart. Renuka’s passion for the progression of social justice issues in the South has allowed her to bring significant changes on in her community ranging from registering thousands of voters to working on sensory inclusion on an international level. Renuka first started working on campaigns in the 7th grade and strongly believes in policy-based solutions. Renuka looks forward to attending law school this fall and work in the South following law school to litigate for disadvantaged individual and advocate against unjust public policy.

Eli Tylicki (The University of Alabama at Birmingham)

Eli Tylicki is an upcoming senior at the University of Alabama at Birmingham studying economics and philosophy. He loves learning, and he gets my fulfillment from helping others. Eli plans to finish at UAB and attend law school so that he may pursue a career in human rights law.

/by