In May 2014, Brian Tronic, the Crowley Fellow in International Rights, traveled to Southeast Asia with eight Fordham Law students in tow. The trip was not Tronic’s first time in the region; he had previously lived in India, working for a nongovernmental organization. His experience and expertise in the field of human rights had made him a perfect fit to lead the group of passionate and adventurous human rights advocates known as the Crowley Scholars.
Since 1998, the Crowley Scholars Program, now an integral component of the Law School’s Leitner Center for International Law and Justice, has served as a premier training ground for Fordham Law students eager to cultivate their research and advocacy skills in international human rights. Six to eight students are accepted every year into the program, one of the fi rst in the United States to comprehensively blend the theoretical study of human rights law with substantive practical application. As a result of this unique approach, Crowley Scholars have the opportunity to participate in engaging human rights research and robust overseas investigations.
“The students are involved with a human rights fact-finding project throughout the entire course of the program,” says Tronic. “I certainly didn’t get to do that during my law school experience.”
Once admitted to the program, Crowley Scholars participate in a rigorous curriculum that covers the theory, practice, and advocacy of human rights. The program includes a discussion-oriented seminar where scholars work together with their supervising Crowley Fellow during the overseas fieldwork.
The capstone of the program is fact-finding fieldwork, which allows the Scholars to apply what they have learned in the classroom to a real human rights issue. The Fellow analyzes and considers a number of human rights problems throughout the world before determining what issue to address and where, in consultation with Leitner Center faculty and staff as well as local grassroots organizations and activists.
“The program is less of a traditional student-teacher dynamic, and more of a collaboration between the Fellow and the Scholars,” says Tronic. “We strive to give the students a solid enough background so that when they arrive at the project site they know what to do to begin meaningful advocacy work.”
As a Crowley Fellow, Tronic enjoyed the freedom to develop a unique project with his team of Crowley Scholars. After brainstorming and conducting background research and identifying partner organizations, Tronic and his Scholars decided on their focus: LGBT rights in Bangladesh. Following an academic year of intensive training and study, Tronic and the Scholars flew into Dhaka and got to work.
“We interviewed dozens of people: LGBT community members, about their challenges and their difficulties, and also judges, politicians, lawyers, and UN officials, to understand what was and was not being done,” Tronic says.
Dana Swanson, a 2013–2014 Crowley Scholar, appreciated the program’s invigorating group dynamic and the impact of the shared learning experience.
“While the primary purpose of our fact-finding project was to conduct as many interviews as possible to inform the report, I found as a Scholar that an important secondary benefit of the Crowley Program was how close you become to the Fellow and other students on the trip,” she says. “The human rights community in law school is quite small. This program gives you a way to cement relationships with not just like-minded people but also future colleagues.”
Once the fieldwork concludes, the Fellow and other faculty draft a comprehensive report on the findings, with input from the Scholars, and recommendations on how to mitigate the human rights problems they encountered. The reports are typically published in the Fordham International Law Journal as well as in a glossy stand-alone version for use by policymakers and human rights advocates.
Elisabeth Wickeri served as Crowley Fellow in 2008 when the program traveled to Nepal to investigate land rights issues. With her group of Human Rights Fact-Finding Projects, Wickeri worked to raise awareness of land rights as a broad international human rights issue rather than strictly a development issue, highlighting how access to land is key to accessing other basic human rights like food and water.
“At the time of my project, Nepal was just transitioning out of a 10-year civil war,” says Wickeri, now Executive Director of the Leitner Center and Co-Director of the Center’s Asia Law and Justice Program. “Typically, when countries emerge from conflict, the international community tends to focus on civil and political rights, but my aim was to show that socioeconomic issues, like access to food, water, and shelter, are just as crucial during these times of transition.”
Wickeri became a Crowley Fellow after working for four years in the human rights field, where she focused mainly on China. She was drawn to the Crowley Program because it allowed its Fellows the freedom to pursue their human rights interests creatively.
“One of the great things about the program is that as a young human rights advocate and researcher, you are not only provided with facultysupport but also given leeway to focus on what interests you,” she says.
During the Crowley Scholars Program, many Fellows discover an unexpected love of teaching through their work with the Scholars. Wickeri was no exception.
“I had never taught before the program, and I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the collaboration and engagement with students. Seeing how excited and passionate they were to learn was really rewarding as their supervisor and teacher.”
Wickeri currently plays a mentoring role to incoming Crowley Fellows and counsels them on the three main goals of the program.
1) To give students hands-on practical experience in human rights law.
“In order to be a successful lawyer today—whatever the type—having some kind of global understanding of legal issues and an exposure to human rights concerns is crucial,” says Wickeri. Graduating with practical fieldwork experience can also catapult law students ahead of peers interested in the competitive field of human rights.
2) To work in solidarity with partnering grassroots organizations across the globe.
The Crowley Program is committed to keeping its relationships with local partners collaborative.
“Being located in New York City, we have a responsibility to utilize whatever channels we have unique access to in order to help small organizations that lack these opportunities. But we also recognize that things look really different from over here. So it’s important that we’re listening to and amplifying the local voices on the ground in our work, rather than just offering our opinion of what we think is necessary.”
3) To contribute to scholarship.
“We’re not just producing an advocacy report; we’re also trying to contribute to critical research and further an academic understanding of human rights issues,” says Wickeri.
With the 2014–2015 academic year already under way, the planning for this year’s Crowley Scholars Program is proceeding at a furious pace. The excitement and enthusiasm of the Scholars and Fellow are palpable.
Zach Hudson ’13, the 2014–2015 Crowley Fellow, will be focusing on refugee rights in Southeast Asia. Though details of the project are still being finalized, this year’s Crowley Scholars will study issues related to refugees, internally displaced people, and stateless individuals who are being forced or coerced to move because of issues like conflict, resource scarcity, natural disasters, and climate change.
Hudson, who was himself a Crowley Scholar on the 2011–2012 project in Bolivia, is excited to forge relationships with this new group of Scholars and to see how the project will inspire them to become globally oriented. He believes the two-semester design of the program leads to long-term growth for both the students and himself.
“We research together, we learn and become very passionate about the issue together, and then we travel together,” he says. “The holistic experience is very impactful.”
The 2014–2015 Crowley Scholars, many of whom decided to attend Fordham expressly for the program, anticipate a transformative out-ofclassroom experience.
“The on-the-ground fact-finding component of the Crowley Program gives it a new educational dimension because it is not only an academic experience but a practical, concrete one where you see problems and policies actually affecting people,” says 2014–2015 Crowley Scholar Olivia Gonzalez.
Thomas Callahan, another of this year’s Scholars, has done extensive civil society work in the former Soviet Union. He believes that his Crowley experience will prepare him to delve into human rights work after law school with a much higher degree of understanding and expertise.
“I think the Crowley Program gives an opportunity for students like me, who have shown a real interest in international human rights issues, to acquire the legal vocabulary and training needed to know our way around this area of the law,” he says.
Hailey Flynn, another 2014–2015 Scholar, also anticipates using the skills she learns through the program when she begins her career.
“I’m interested in doing human rights work, specifically in reproductive rights advocacy. Having the training to implement a human rights framework, to conduct the research and fact-finding, to understand what the issues are on the ground, and then to advocate for better access for those populations—I think that’s a really great way to see start to finish how a human rights project looks,” she says.
Rodrigo Bacus, like his fellow Crowley Scholars, is excited to connect with those in the human rights field and to apply what he learns to his work.
“The concepts and principles of human rights are very large, but in terms of physical resources and individuals, the field is small,” he says. “I’d like to be able to get into the human rights sphere and become familiar with the scholars, workers, and advocates. I’d like to develop more as a human rights scholar, so the human rights class is really helpful right now. Over the summer I was grappling with human rights concepts, with what I thought were limitations in the human rights framework as it’s currently conceived. I wrestled with other philosophical ideas that seemed to me contradictory to human rights, so I’d like to explore that a little more, and this program gives me the opportunity to do that through meaningful action.”
Though every Crowley Scholar evinces a tremendous passion for human rights and social justice, not all of them have gone on to work exclusively in human rights advocacy. Tronic, however, sees this as a benefit. Regardless of what type of law Crowley Scholars pursue in the future, they will always walk away from the program with new perspectives and leadership qualities.
“We think there’s value to a human rights education, no matter what you end up doing,” Tronic says. “You’ll have a different understanding of current events; you’ll relate differently to the news. Crowley Scholars take the perspectives and the knowledge they’ve learned during the program, and they keep that in mind in all their future endeavors.”