Amanda Rose Laura Foundation Education Law Fellowship to Advance Educational Equity The Feerick Center is honored to support the Amanda Rose Laura Foundation Education Law Fellowship established to commemorate the life of Amanda Rose Laura, an aspiring lawyer and education law advocate, to further her vision to bridge the achievement gap for students from underserved communities. Laura Petty ’21, the inaugural Amanda Rose Laura Foundation Education Law Fellow, spent the 2019-2020 academic year supporting the Feerick Center’s educational equity work and conducting independent education policy research projects. Laura worked on the Feerick Center’s report, Screened Out: The Lack of Access to NYC Screened Program Admissions Criteria , and helped formulate recommendations produced by the Rubrics Subcommittee, Public Schools, Public Oversight: Principles and Policy Recommendations During COVID-19 and Beyond . Laura co-authored the October 20, 2019 op-ed published in the Daily News arguing that the COVID-19 pandemic presented an opportunity to make NYC’s high school admissions more equitable. Laura’s research during the 2019 fall semester on policies to overcome school segregation culminated in her note, The Way Forward: Permissible and Effective Race Conscious Strategies for Avoiding Racial Segregation in Diverse Schools , that was published in the Fordham Urban Law Journal ,(47 Fordham Urb. L.J. 659 (2020) available at https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/ulj/vol47/ iss3/6/). During the 2020 spring semester, Laura conducted extensive research on Education Option admissions in NYC, and co-authored a forthcoming report, Academic Diversity in New York City High Schools: the Education Option Model, Past and Present. The Feerick Center welcomed its second Amanda Rose Laura Foundation Education Law Fellow, Brain Sarfo ’22, for the 2020- 2021 academic year. Brian will work with the center on its Civics Education and Pipeline to Law School Initiative and develop a civics module that examines Articles I-III of the Constitution and the related amendments through a critical race lens.
The fellowship truly altered my law school experience and set me on a path to pursue the work I care about—advocating for educational equity and school integration in New York City. Working with the Feerick Center provided me with invaluable professional mentorship and relationships, the opportunity to dive deeply into my scholarly interests, and the chance to collaborate closely with advocates and researchers in the field I hope to enter. I am honored to have served as the inaugural Education Law Fellow. I will cherish and further the relationships and work from this year for years to come. Laura Petty
Amanda Rose Laura Foundation Education Law Fellow, 2019-2020 Fordham Law School, Class of 2021
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