Background information
on gender and asylum issues4

The Judith Stronach Women's Rights Fellowship

The Center for Gender and Refugee Studies is the beneficiary of an extraordinarily generous bequest by Judith Lee Stronach, a Berkeley resident and long-time peace activist and philanthropist. Judith's life was dedicated to nonviolence and social justice, and she tirelessly gave her time, as well as her financial resources, to a range of causes. Judith was a poet, teacher, and arts patron as well as a social activist. She worked with homeless people living on Berkeley streets, taught poetry to Berkeley middle school students, and belonged to the Buddhist Peace Fellowship and Berkeley Friends Meeting.

Judith began her participation in international human rights efforts in 1985 as an interpreter for the Guatemalan Office of Human Rights, then in exile in Mexico City. Her dedication to victims of human rights violations led her to work at a respite camp for Bosnian children traumatized by war, and she was a generous supporter of human rights NGOs. Judith expressed interest in CGRS's work shortly after it was founded in 1999. The Center's efforts on behalf of women asylum seekers resonated with her long-standing commitment to women's rights and human rights, and she especially valued the use of the law in service of social justice.

In her memory, CGRS has established the Judith Stronach Women's Rights Fellowship. Beginning in 2005, the fellowship recognizes those CGRS summer law students whose background, idealism, and commitment to women's rights exemplify Judith's dedication to protecting the human rights of women, especially women refugees.

In 2008 we recognize four outstanding law students as Stronach Fellows:

Pictured from left to right: Lindsay Harris, Morgan Weibel and Liz Pellegrin. Not pictured: Karla Vargas

Lindsay M. Harris

Liz Pellegrin

Liz is a third-year law student at UC Hastings College of the Law.
Before coming to Hastings, Liz volunteered with community development projects in Costa Rica and Bolivia, migrant farm workers in upstate New York, an internally displaced Quiché community in Guatemala, and immigrant communities in Brooklyn, children in an orphanage in Mexico, and an OAS observation mission in Guatemala. While at Hastings, Liz interned at the International Institute of the Bay Area working particularly with immigrant victims of domestic violence, as well as the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights working with asylum applicants and anti-discrimination and homeless rights advocates. After her summer with CGRS, Liz will continue her work with the Hastings Refugee & Human Rights Clinic and as a Lawyers' Committee asylum intake volunteer, Hastings co-representative of the National Lawyers Guild, and a member of the Hastings Race & Poverty Law Journal.

Karla Vargas

Karla is entering her final year of a dual degree program at the University of Texas School of Law (UT Law) and UT’s LBJ School of Public Affairs. Before beginning her legal studies, Karla volunteered for a year as an AmeriCorps VISTA, coordinating a program that assisted detained immigrant children through their immigration proceedings. While at UT Law, Karla has interned with the ACLU of Texas, advocating for immigrant rights along the border, in particular, issues of police enforcement of federal immigration law. Karla has also interned with the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York, focusing her work on issues of racial justice. While at CGRS, Karla’s work focused on researching femicides in Latin America. After completing her studies, Karla plans to continue with a career in the immigration field, both in directly representing individuals in immigration proceedings, as well as civil rights litigation defending immigrant rights.

Morgan Weibel

Morgan is a third-year law student at the University of California, Hastings College of the Law. Before coming to law school Morgan worked as an asylum law paralegal at a law firm in San Francisco where she specialized in social group claims based on gender and mental illness. She has also interned in the legal department of UNHCR's Regional Office for the U.S. and the Carribean in Washington D.C., in the immigration department of the Spanish Red Cross in Granada, Spain, and with Civil Service International at the Eichlitten Refugee Transit Center in Switzerland. Additionally, Morgan volunteered with the San Francisco branch of the International Rescue Committee and with Cleveland Legal Aid's weekend refugee adjustment clinic. While at Hastings Morgan has participated in the Hastings to Haiti Partnership and the Refugee and Human Rights Clinic. Morgan spent last summer interning at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania and will spend next fall externing in the Appeals Chambers of the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda in the Hague, Netherlands.

 

Past Stronach Fellows