IU Maurer School of Law, Southern Poverty Law Center partner for Julian Bond Law Scholars program
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BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- The Indiana University Maurer School of Law has partnered with the Southern Poverty Law Center on a scholarship, mentoring and summer externship program designed to attract high-performing law students interested in social justice and equality issues, with a deep commitment to helping the most vulnerable members of our society.
Named in honor of the iconic civil rights leader and founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Julian Bond Law Scholars program will offer law students an affordable pathway to a professional career; eliminate the stress and anxiety that some students feel when trying to find employment after their first year of law school; and provide unparalleled hands-on legal experience, while allowing students to make a difference in advancing social justice issues.
Each year the program will provide one Julian Bond Law Scholar with a scholarship equal to a minimum of 50 percent and up to a maximum of 100 percent of tuition. The scholarship could reduce the cost of tuition over three years by as much as $140,000 for Indiana residents and $235,000 for nonresidents. The Julian Bond Law Scholars will also have access to a formal mentoring program at the law school led by members of its Alumni Board and its Black Law Students Association, Latino and LGBT alumni advisory boards.
In addition, the scholarship recipients will be offered a summer externship upon completion of their first year of law school, with a $4,000 stipend to cover living expenses; and a research assistantship during their second or third years with professor H. Timothy Lovelace, an expert on legal history, civil rights, and race and the law.
“The Southern Poverty Law Center is thrilled to engage in this partnership with the Maurer School of Law," said Ebony Howard, associate legal director for the SPLC. "This effort embodies the essence of Julian’s legacy: demonstrating the importance of fighting for equality and justice by nurturing future freedom fighters. We are honored to be a part of an effort that honors Julian and his vision."
“The Julian Bond Law Scholars program is a perfect fit for our school because of our significant faculty commitment to research and teaching in the areas of civil rights and social justice,” said Austen L. Parrish, dean of the law school and the James H. Rudy Professor of Law. “The Southern Poverty Law Center does critically important work, and we are honored that Mr. Bond’s wife, Pamela Sue Horowitz, has kindly agreed to let us use his name in connection with this program.”
Bond delivered the school’s Addison Harris Lecture in 2014, shortly before his death.
Parrish noted that the law school’s current faculty whose research and teaching are centered on civil rights and social justice include Jeannine Bell (hate crimes and criminal justice); Kevin Brown (race, law and education); Jessica Eaglin (sentencing reform); Luis Fuentes-Rohwer (voting rights); Dawn Johnsen (reproductive justice); H. Timothy Lovelace (legal history, race and the law); Christiana Ochoa (law and economic development); Deborah Widiss (gender orientation and sexual identity); and Susan Williams (gender equality). He added that the program builds on the school’s extensive public service and pro bono programs, including seven live-client clinics and six pro bono projects, and that it adds to more than 20 scholarship programs designed to help recruit a highly talented and diverse student body.
“I'm thrilled that we've established the Julian Bond Law Scholars program to honor an American hero and my mentor,” Lovelace said. “The Julian Bond Law Scholars program will provide a new generation of justice-minded students a unique opportunity to connect their personal, scholarly and professional interests in civil rights.”
A charismatic figure of the 1960s civil rights movement and a lifelong champion of equal rights, Bond was one of the original leaders of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee while he was a student at Morehouse College in Atlanta. With Morris Dees, he founded the Southern Poverty Law Center, serving as president from 1971 to 1979 and remaining on its board for the rest of his life. He also played a key leadership role in the NAACP, where he was its chairman from 1998 to 2010. In addition, he was a member of the Georgia General Assembly for 20 years, serving as both a representative and senator.
Founded in 1842, the Indiana University Maurer School of Law is the oldest public law school in the Midwest. The law school has a long history of graduating students committed to issues of equality and justice, including Masuji Miyakawa, class of 1905, a civil rights pioneer and the first Japanese-American admitted to the bar in the U.S.; Juanita Kidd Stout, ’54, the first elected African-American trial judge in the country and the first to serve on a state supreme court; Shirley Abrahamson, ’56, the first woman on the Wisconsin Supreme Court (and its chief justice); Franklin Cleckley, ’65, the first African-American justice on the West Virginia Supreme Court; Loretta Rush, ’83, the first female chief justice of Indiana; and V. Sue Shields, ’61, the first female judge of the Indiana Court of Appeals.
Ranked 25th in the nation by U.S. News & World Report, the law school is the highest-ranked public law school in Indiana and among the top 10 public law schools nationally. In addition to its top-25 overall ranking, the school also has highly ranked programs in international law, at 18th; tax, at 20th; and intellectual property, at 23rd.
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Ken Turchi
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- Maurer School of Law
- Office 812-856-4044
- kturchi@indiana.edu