Look, we’ll level with you, dear reader. We are all out of thoughtful opening lines about the current state of the world. Everything is on fire, as usual. But here we are, anyway, with some thrilling news to share.
What’s Happening Now:
We want to thank the members of the IfRFA community, friends, and affiliates for helping us in spreading the word about IfRFA and the IfRFA fellowship application! After reviewing a number of outstanding applications, we’re so happy to announce that we have chosen 5 fellows for our
summer 2022 fellowship program!
Meet
Mica Standing Soldier from University of Minnesota Law School,
Tara Ahluwalia from Tulane Law School,
Nneka Onyekwuluje from Case Western Reserve University School of Law,
Marlene Berroa Rodriguez from CUNY School of Law, and
Hasala Ariyaratne from Georgetown Law School! We are so excited to have them on board and we’re working with various law school clinics to help them find the right summer internship. We look forward to having the opportunity to explore a range of freedom of expression issues during the upcoming summer!
Our excitement is only increasing as after working remotely for two years with two previous cohorts, we’re so thrilled to announce that all our cohort members will be getting together in Cambridge, MA in March 2022! Since we have had to move our gatherings online, we are careful and enthusiastic about being face-to-face (with masks!) Expect pictures in our next newsletter.
What IfRFA Has Been Up To:
Both in 2020 and in 2021 the IfRFA team was fortunate to organize a range of virtual events surrounding freedom of expression issues. Our last event, in case you missed it, focused on
First Amendment Careers, featuring friends of IfRFA, Advisory Board members, and a 2020 cohort member! We are enormously thankful to Nora Benavidez, Sommer Ingram Dean, Meenakshi Krishnan, and Alyssa Morones for joining Kendra Albert to talk about their work and their vision, and hopefully inspired more law school students to explore careers in the first amendment. You can view this event and all of our events on the
IfRFA Events Page!
We also helped the Legal Clinics fund put together
this fantastic report, which summarizes the work of both IfRFA and a number of our sibling clinics at various law schools. Here’s a key quote: “IfRFA strives to model the world as it should be by fostering a community of caring, paying everyone fairly for their work, and ensuring that the field of law practitioners reflects the multi-racial reality of life today.”
What’s Up Next:
Once we finalize the clinics placements for our 2022 cohort members, we’ll be enthusiastically moving forward to working with
She Geeks Out (SGO+) again! Last year we worked with SGO+ to provide a virtual DEI training workshop to our clinic sites. We have more training in store and since we received such great reviews last year, SGO+ facilitator
Fatima Dainkeh will be back to share more knowledge with our group and we’re eager to continue our conversations.
Until next time,
Kendra & Jasjot.