The Supreme Court’s decision in Students for Fair Admissions has upended nearly a half century of precedent. Universities that had long relied on race-based affirmative action in their admissions policies will no longer be permitted to do so.

This fall we launched a Law and Policy Lab to take up the question with which universities across the country must now grapple: What next? The orientation of the lab is forward-looking and inclined toward innovation. New principles. New goals. New ideas.

Rather than merely try to accomplish indirectly what the Supreme Court has prohibited universities from doing overtly, the practicum aims to treat the Supreme Court’s prohibition of race-based affirmative action as an opportunity to reconsider more broadly the goals of selective college admissions and the ways in which America’s leading educational institutions may reform admissions and associated practices in order to improve higher education broadly. Advanced education is crucially important both to national well-being and to racial justice. There is no path to racial justice that does not entail an educational system that works better for people of all backgrounds. The recent Supreme Court decisions regarding race preferences in admissions, and also student loan forgiveness, create an uncommon opportunity to fairly radically rethink how universities make good on their implicit bargain with the American people: to receive public patronage in exchange for enhancing educational opportunity and social mobility.

We are thrilled to announce a stellar cohort of students from across campus who collectively bring a diverse range of talents, perspectives, and experiences to this project. They are working alongside our teaching team and course research assistants to develop a guidance document for universities, policymakers, and stakeholders that serves as a national road map for how to promote learning and advance racial justice following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn race-based affirmative action.

Fall 2023 Policy Lab Students

Hannah K. D’ Apice | Hannah is a PhD candidate at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Education. Her work broadly examines the cross-national diffusion of cultural norms around education, with a special focus on higher education. Her dissertation examines how universities engage with categories of race and ethnicity through formal structure and policy, both cross-nationally and over time. Prior to her doctoral studies, she managed multi-state randomized controlled trials evaluating K-12 education curricula and programming, as well as worked as a teacher in Texas and Singapore. She has an M.A. in Sociology and an M.A. in International Education Policy Analysis, both from Stanford University, as well as a B.A. in Political Science from Columbia University.

 

Ivy Chen | Ivy (she/her) is a second-year undergraduate student from McLean, Virginia majoring in Political Science and pursuing a coterminal master’s degree in Sociology. Her academic interests include constitutional law, judicial politics, and American democracy. She hopes to attend law school in the future. This past summer, she was a Civil Litigation Intern at the D.C. Office of Attorney General. On campus, she serves as the Parliamentarian of the 25th Undergraduate Senate, is a Constitutional Law Center Undergraduate Fellow, works on the Neighborhood Task Force, and competes on the collegiate Model United Nations team. She is a member of Stanford Women in Politics (SWIP), Stanford American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Stanford Pre-Law Society, and Stanford Women in Law. During her free time, she enjoys hiking and being outdoors, watching the Stanford Women’s Basketball team play, and trying out different cafés around campus. She is excited to work with the Stanford Center for Racial Justice as a policy practicum student and is looking forward to working on higher education reforms to promote learning and advance racial justice after Students for Fair Admissions.

Jim Cowie | Jim Cowie is a Fellow at Stanford University’s Distinguished Careers Institute. Previously, he served as Chief Legal Officer at Lawrence J. Ellison Institute for Transformative Medicine, and as Senior VP and General Counsel at Cadence Design Systems. While at Cadence, Jim was part of the executive management team that led the company through a turnaround that produced strong growth in revenue, profitability, employment and culture (earning recognition including Fortune – 100 Best Companies to Work For, Great Place to Work – World’s 25 Best Workplaces, People – 50 Companies that Care, and ranked #1 among technology companies by Investor’s Business Daily in Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance) and total shareholder return far in excess of the NASDAQ Composite and S&P 500 indices. Before Cadence, he held positions of increasing responsibility at companies in health information software and services, retail and real estate development, and began his legal career at the law firm now known as Troutman Pepper. Jim is a member of the Executive Committee of the Board of Directors of Stanford University’s Buck/Cardinal Club, and the Service Leadership Corps for The Mission Continues. He is a former member of the Board of Directors of the Business Software Alliance. Jim holds a JD from Stanford University and a bachelor’s degree in Economics, magna cum laude, from Duke University. Before attending law school, he served for more than four years as an officer in the United States Navy, primarily aboard the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk, and achieving the rank of Lieutenant.

Emily Olick Llano | Emily (she/her/ella) is a master’s student from Cambridge, MA, studying Policy, Organization, and Leadership Studies. Her primary academic interests exist at the intersection of immigration, post-secondary access, and policy. In 2022, she founded Avanza Education, a higher education consulting practice dedicated to the advancement of undocumented students through postsecondary access. Before coming to Stanford, Emily worked in education consulting at Harvard’s Center for Education Policy Research. She was part of a team that partners with school districts to help them identify, pilot, and evaluate data-driven solutions to student achievement challenges. Previously, she worked in Boston as an Investment Analyst at Cambridge Associates, an international investment consulting firm. In this role, she specialized in socially responsible endowment management for Historically Black Colleges and Universities and mission-driven not-for-profit foundation clients. Emily received her BA in psychology from Bowdoin College with a minor in education and is also a Fulbright award recipient. She is thrilled to be a part of the Stanford Center for Racial Justice Policy Practicum.

Patrick Perez | Patrick is originally from Boise, Idaho pursuing a coterminal master’s degree in Sociology. Primarily interested in racial and economic inequality, Patrick majored in American Studies with a focus on Identity, Law, and Inequality while minoring in Ethics in Society. He has worked as a research assistant for the Court Listening Project and interned for public service organizations such as the Transgender Law Center, California Rural Legal Assistance, and PrisonWriters.com. He has also spent time working as a camp counselor, resident assistant on campus, and tour guide! Outside of class, you can find him out on hikes, spending time with friends, and playing Super Mario Bros on Wii. Patrick is looking forward to working with this incredible team and learning every step of the way.

 

Brandon Roul | Brandon is a third-year law student who intends to practice anti-discrimination law. He is a former Corporate Governance and Racial Equity project intern at the Stanford Center for Racial Justice and this past summer, worked on a number of anti-discrimination matters as a Summer Associate at Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP.

 

 

 

 

Mia Schaubhut | Mia (she/her) is a junior from St. James Parish, Louisiana majoring in Data Science & Social Systems and pursuing a minor in Education Policy & Research. Her academic interests are primarily in higher education access and mathematics education. She hopes to attend law school in the future to examine issues related to educational equity. She has interned at the Louisiana Department of Education as a student consultant this past summer. In her commitment to expanding access to higher education for first-generation and low-income students, she has served as a Recruitment & Admissions Intern for the non-profit organization Leadership Enterprise for a Diverse America (LEDA) this past year. On campus, she is a teaching assistant within the Graduate School of Education and a member in Stanford Women in Politics (SWIP). In her free time, she enjoys sunrise walks around campus, playing pickleball or tennis, and watching comedies. She is ecstatic to collaborate with her peers in SCRJ’s Fall Policy Practicum!

Brandon Tineo | Brandon (he/him) is a master’s student at the Graduate School of Education. He is a proud first-generation Peruvian-American born and raised in the Bay Area. Brandon completed his undergraduate degree in Psychology at Harvard and a master’s degree in Computer Science at the University of Pennsylvania. Brandon has been working with high school students applying to college for the last 10 years. In his free time, Brandon enjoys going to the gym, adventuring with his 2 beagles, and coding.

 

 

 

Marissa Uri | Marissa is a 2L from Charlotte, North Carolina. Marissa is interested in expanding legal academia to incorporate more diverse authorship, and currently serves as Editor-in-Chief of the Stanford Law and Policy Review and Member Editor of Stanford Law Review. She also serves as President of the Native American Law Students Association (NALSA) and Vice President of the Asian and Pacific Islander Law Students Association (APILSA). This past summer, she worked at Covington & Burling in San Francisco. She is interested in privacy and cybersecurity law and transactional law.

 

 

Victoria Yan | Victoria is a junior majoring in Economics. She joined the policy lab due to her interest in the role and selection of American elites. In particular, Victoria is interested in constructing a more accurate heuristic for merit than the elite college credential. Her other interests include homelessness in America and, more broadly, poverty reduction. This past summer, she interned at Innovations for Poverty Action, where she supported poverty reduction and consumer protection research in low- and middle-income countries. She also serves as a research assistant on a project analyzing the causes and consequences of homelessness in California for the Stanford Institute of Economic Policy Research. Ultimately, Victoria is interested in reducing homelessness — particularly for the severely mentally ill — in America. Victoria is grateful to the policy lab for the opportunity to partake in (exciting!) weekly discussion with her peers and professors.

Katelin Zhou | Katelin (she/her) is a senior from Thousand Oaks, California studying Management Science and Engineering. She is very passionate about the intersection of racial justice and education and currently serves as co-founder/co-CEO of the nonprofit Diversify Our Narrative, which is a national organization mobilizing students as changemakers for an anti-racist future through education. Specifically, she works with high school students to push for institutional policy reform and a more diverse curriculum for BIPOC students in the K-12 education system. As a Chinese-American student who grew up in a PWI, she heavily believes in the importance of representation and how meaningful it is to teach BIPOC narratives that encapsulate the unique myriad of stories that students of color experience, specifically to foster a more inclusive, empathetic future. On campus, she is involved in research at the GSB on a corporate justice project, investigating the effects of corporate wrongdoing on various stakeholders and how laws and regulations shape these outcomes. She has also been heavily involved in Stanford Consulting, and currently serves as the co-VP of Recruiting for Stanford Consulting. In her free time, she loves listening to Taylor Swift, bowling, and watching stand-up comedy!

Fall 2023 Policy Lab Research Assistants

Carolina Nazario | Carolina is a senior majoring in Sociology with a minor in Political Science and is passionate about civil rights law and making legal services more accessible. She works to encourage public service amongst Stanford students through her current role as a Peer Advisor at the Haas Center. She has also worked at the Legal Design Lab in order to understand how evictions are currently being portrayed online and how to use social media in order to aid legal service efforts. On campus, Carolina worked on the Unlocking Justice Law and Policy Practicum in order to aid self-represented litigants by standardizing the form submission process. This past spring, she interned at Public Citizen researching local campaign finance trends during her time at the Stanford in Washington program. During her free time, Carolina enjoys baking, spending time outside, and chatting with friends.

 

Imani Nokuri | Imani is a 2L at Stanford Law School interested in studying the intersections of race and technology, two areas that touch every aspect of our world. She graduated as a Banneker-Key Scholar from University of Maryland College Park with a Bachelor of Arts in Government and Politics and a minor in Nonprofit Leadership and Social Innovation. Her prior work experience includes the Office of the Public Defender in Prince George’s County, the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, and most recently, the California Office of the Attorney General in Los Angeles. At Stanford, Imani is a Co-President of the Black Law Students Association, Development Editor for the Stanford Journal of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, and Co-Chair of On Campus Programming for the Stanford Prison Abolition and Resources Coalition. In her free time, Imani is a Zumba instructor and loves going to concerts with friends and family.