Eight students from the University of Texas School of Law have been selected by the Bernard and Audre Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice as Rapoport Center Summer Fellows. They will fan out to nongovernmental and intergovernmental organizations in destinations as diverse as London; Washington, D.C.; and Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Their projects include building the legal capacity of marginalized groups, assisting in war crimes prosecutions, representing victims of family violence, increasing compliance with international human rights treaties, and advocating for the rights of low-income workers.
The fellowships, which provide stipends for travel costs and living expenses, are made possible by a generous grant from the Cain Foundation, a longtime supporter of international legal placements at the Law School, and the Orlando Letelier and Ronnie Karpen Moffitt Endowed Presidential Scholarship in Law, which supports students who engage in pro bono legal work in the area of human rights.
Rapoport Center Summer Law Fellows (left to right): Kristian Aguilar, Stacy Cammarano, Caitlin Boehne, Devin Sefton, Mallory Owen. (Not pictured: Elizabeth Coleman, Audrey Lynn, Della Sentilles.)
The recipients of this year’s fellowships are:
- Kristian Aguilar, ’12, will intern at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in Washington, D.C., where she will conduct research, prepare reports, organize events, and analyze policies impacting human rights in the Americas.
- Caitlin Boehne, ’12, will intern with the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania, prosecuting those accused of participating in the 1994 Rwandan genocide.
- Stacy Cammarano, ’12, will work for Human Rights USA in Washington, D.C., where she will collaborate on innovative litigation for use in U.S. courts that strives to prevent major human rights abuses including torture and gender-based violence.
- Elizabeth Coleman, ’13, will intern with the Bi-National Family Violence Project in Weslaco, Texas. She will work with low-income survivors of family violence in cases that involve complex border issues.
- Audrey Lynn, ’13, will work with the Equal Justice Center, an employment justice organization that helps low-income, mostly immigrant, workers enforce their wage and employment rights.
- Mallory Owen, ’13, will intern with Protimos, an organization of development lawyers working to build the legal capacity of indigenous and marginalized communities in Sub-Saharan Africa. She will work on public interest projects as well as intellectual property rights and biodiversity cases.
- Devin Sefton, ’12, will intern with the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in San José, Costa Rica, where he will conduct research and draft opinions for ongoing human rights cases.
- Della Sentilles, ’12, will intern in the Office of the Co-Prosecutors at the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia. She will assist in the prosecution of four senior Khmer Rouge leaders who have been indicted for crimes against humanity and genocide.
In addition, the Rapoport Center has chosen four UT graduate students to assist in the Center’s mission to promote the economic and political enfranchisement of marginalized individuals and groups both locally and globally. This summer’s Rapoport Center Graduate Fellows are Lydia Crafts Putnam (Women’s and Gender Studies), Juan Portillo (Women’s and Gender Studies), Raja Swamy (Anthropology), and Amina Zarrugh (Sociology). They will work at the Center on various advocacy projects and other initiatives to promote the study and practice of human rights.
Contact: William Chandler, Bernard and Audre Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice, (512) 232-4857,