Stephanie M. Daigle's Myers Law Scholarship Acceptance Speech
April 6, 2019
Good evening everyone. Distinguished alumni, faculty, staff, colleagues – It’s a pleasure and an honor to be here among you this evening. As I wondered all week what I could possibly say to such an esteemed crowd full of people I would love to be when I grow up, one particular theme reverberated through my mind – investment.
I was born, raised and spent my entire life in the most populated part of Arkansas – which is still pretty rural. Arkansas is a beautiful and incredible place – the irony is that the thing that makes it so magical to me is also the thing that hurts it the most – it’s untouched, it’s forgotten. It’s one of the forgotten corners of our country. A state that ranks 49th or 50th in most things, most people could be described as “the working poor.”
Most formatively for me, I went to a Sisters of Mercy high school. The Sisters of Mercy are what I would describe as the lady Jesuits. The curriculum at Mount engaged students in service, learning the local community. Students spent hours each week in local nursing homes, in preschools for disabled children, in homeless shelters and soup kitchens, domestic violence shelters – directly engaging with and serving the community of which we were apart.
There I learned about the principles of Catholic social teaching – there are nine, but my two favorites: first the common good, which refers to the social conditions that permit people to reach their full potential and to realize their human dignity, and second, subsidiarity – the idea that solutions to a problem should first and foremost come from the community most affected. All this to say – we are called to invest in one another.
My first legal job was in foster care. I worked for a non-profit that served abused and neglected children in five counties in rural Arkansas. What I didn’t know at the time was that I was watching what we talk about today as the opioid crisis unfold before my eyes. The majority of the families we served had been destabilized by addiction. I sat in court as parents’ rights were terminated, as families were reunited, and as new families were formed through adoption. I met children who never knew a life not in foster care, I met kids who aged out, I met a handful of kids who got happy endings, but the reality is that most do not.
The social workers worked tirelessly – but they were understaffed, underfunded, overwhelmed, and only able to band-aid the problems for individual families. Our agency was a gap-filler, attempting to go beyond bare necessities and get the community invested in these kids and their families. It was in this space, I learned to view lawyering as a helping profession. The lawyers had the power to set things right. To even the odds for these children who had the odds stacked against them. I decided this was my calling – to be a lawyer. To get close to the problems. To set things right. To push back against social conditions and institutions that put often insurmountable barriers in front of people. To design systems that respected human dignity and protected the most vulnerable among us and challenge existing structures that did not.
I was admitted to WCL off the waitlist with no scholarships or grants, I signed on the dotted line to finance my entire education in loans, and I moved from Conway, Arkansas to Washington, DC. I took a leap – I knew the investment I was putting into myself to get the skills that I needed to go forth into our community and be a changemaker. I admired WCL’s reputation for commitment to public interest and public service. I knew the future I wanted could only happen here. I was uncomfortable. But I knew, this is where I was supposed to be. I knew this investment would be worth it.
Since that day, I’ve found my niche in providing legal and physical protection to refugees – persons fleeing violence, conflict, or persecution. And one devastating and fascinating truth that I learned in this space is that refugees and foster kids aren’t all that different – displaced from their home through no fault of their own, with either parents or a government that is unwilling or unable to protect them. I worked in a refugee settlement in Uganda for a legal aid organization providing criminal defense to refugees accused of crimes and providing mobile legal aid clinics to refugees in far out communities. I worked for the Public International Law and Policy Group, drafting work product used for peace negotiations with the government of Sudan, where the president who is wanted for his role in the Darfur genocide in 2003, still sits in power, and in Yemen where war crimes are and crimes against children are a daily event. I interned at UNHCR here in DC – and worked resettling clients to the US and Canada, like in the foster care space – the refugee space has limited happy endings. Most recently, I was in Jordan over spring break, doing intakes for the International Refugee Assistance Project assisting clients fleeing violence and persecution in Yemen, Syria, Sudan, and Iraq. In DC, I’ve assisted with representation of campus sexual assault survivors assisted clients in the WCL Housing Advocacy and Litigation Clinic in avoiding payment for nearly fifty thousand dollars in back rent due to atrocious housing conditions and – and I haven’t even graduated yet.
“WCL has solidified in me that sense of responsibility to my community, not just my local community but to the human family as a whole. To whom much is given, much is expected. Much has been given to me here and invested in me here, especially as a humbled recipient of the Myers Law Society Scholarship.”
Stephanie M. Daigle
In fact - I met Ms. Lumeya, my lovely co-winner, last semester – when we worked together to provide briefings to the UN Committee against Torture on Convention against Torture compliance issues in Vietnam and The Netherlands. Lisa, you’re so fierce and so sharp, and I can’t wait to see the waves you make with your career.
Each of these opportunities was funded by an EJF grant, a generous donor, or WCL. I found each of these opportunities through a professor, an alum, or another student. This community has invested in me. It has fostered (and financed) my growth in ways I could never have dreamed. WCL has provided me numerous ways to get close. To understand the legal issues that the most vulnerable among us face in various corners of the world, starting in my own backyard in rural Arkansas, all the way to the under-funded crises on the other side of the world, the protracted conflicts, the places and the people forgotten by the headlines and who the world has moved on and left behind. WCL has solidified in me that sense of responsibility to my community, not just my local community but to the human family as a whole. To whom much is given, much is expected. Much has been given to me here and invested in me here, especially as a humbled recipient of the Myers Law Society Scholarship that funded my entire third year. I promise to live up to this expectation.
A few thank yous are in order – To the Myers Law Society, the generous alum and friends of the school who funded this scholarship, to Professors Carle, Leiter, and Green Coleman, and anyone who had a hand in this selection process – thank you for your time and effort you contribute through this process. Thank you for your kindness, your trust, and your investment. I’m so honored to claim this award, and I can’t even begin to tell you how you’ve changed my stars.
To Musa, thank you for being the most patient partner. You’ve been a gracious test subject for my advocacy pitches and my favorite person to talk with about war crimes over Chinese takeout. You help me calibrate my boundless passion into directed purpose, you challenge me, and I’m grateful you’ve let me lean on you through law school.
To my mom, dad and brother who can’t be here tonight, but who I would not be before you all without. I know the depths of the sacrifices you made, the dreams you had that you put off, and the hard choices you had to make to be sure I had the best education Arkansas could offer. You drove me an hour each way to school for years, paid thousands of dollars in tuition and went without to invest in me and to see me succeed and to give me the greatest gift – an outstanding education. You’ve never doubted me. There aren’t enough words to say thank you.
In today’s turmoil, the uncertainness and the fears many of us share – I want you all to know: Your investments in young lawyers are more valuable now than ever. Not only your monetary investments (but those too) and the time spent teaching skills and imparting knowledge, instilling the desire in the next generation of lawyers to continue your work and build a more just world for all of us… Where fewer and fewer of those barriers exist so that more and more of our human family can prosper.
If I can say anything about WCL – the present may be bleak, but the future looks bright, and it starts here. I know the student leaders in this room will cherish your investments and take the torch forward – and in the WCL way, continue to champion what matters.