Rapoport Summer Fellow Melina De La Garza (bottom, center), interning for the Kosovo Law Centre, with a group of prisoners from a street law training done in a maximum security penitentiary.
Each spring, the Bernard and Audre Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice offers summer funds for UT law students working in international human rights—including within the United States—connected to the Center’s mission of promoting the economic and political enfranchisement of marginalized individuals and groups both locally and globally. Fellowships are open to all first and second year students in a JD or LLM program at the University of Texas School of Law. Host organizations must be non-profit organizations or governmental or intergovernmental organizations. Although the work of the organization need not be exclusively devoted to international human rights, students should indicate in their application how the work they will be doing will relate to or promote international or transnational rights. Ideally, students should commit to 400 hours of service to their host organization. Proposals for split summers will be considered, but proposals for the full summer are preferred. Fellowships will not be awarded for any work for which a student is receiving academic credit. Summer fellows are awarded a stipend of approximately $4,000.00 for 400 hours of service (10-week internship). Any supplemental funding from the host organization or other sources must be indicated. If a student is awarded funding after the submission of the application, the student must inform the committee.
The fellowships are funded by the Rapoport Center, and many are supplemented by grants from the Cain Foundation, a longtime supporter of international legal placements at the law school. Last year, increased funding from the Cain Foundation made it possible to nearly double the amount of money that the law school was able to put toward summer human rights fellowships. Each fellowship that the Center is able to fund is an investment in human rights advocacy and in preparing law students to develop the knowledge, skills and critical thinking that are essential to their future participation in the field.
Read about the 2008 summer fellows, 2007 summer fellows, the 2006 summer fellows and the 2005 summer fellows.