Princess Jefferson and Crystal Tran

While many factors can contribute to an individual’s upward mobility, education remains one of the most powerful tools to transform a life. But the benefits of education—broken cycles of poverty, increased economic opportunities, expanded social mobility, increased confidence, and immense personal growth—can only be fully realized if students aren’t facing constant barriers. These barriers, many of them systemic and sometimes purposeful, include lack of resources, a shortage of qualified teachers, extensive exclusionary discipline, teachers and administrators who fail to truly “see” their students, and disproportionate treatment.

Two incredible, young lawyers, Legal Defense Fund Marshall-Motley Fellow Princess Jefferson and Equal Justice Works Fellow Crystal Tran, are fighting to eliminate those barriers for Texas students with the Texas Appleseed’s Education Justice Project. The Education Justice team, led by director Andrew Hairston and senior staff attorney Renuka Rege, advocates for law and policy changes at state, local, and school district levels to expand educational opportunities, close pathways to dropout, and eliminate contact with the criminal legal system.

If I could make one change in the systems that serve children, it would be to eradicate all policies that fail to view children as living beings and as people worthy of an adequate, equitable education.

— Princess

Both Princess and Crystal are first-generation college graduates who understand the value of education firsthand and who have seen the effect of education systems that do not value all students as both learners and people. They recall being told as kids that knowledge and education are powerful tools that can be used to protect and advance, but they also came to realize that without a true dismantling of racist systems that perpetuate poverty and disadvantage, education alone will not change many students' realities. Both have experienced the education system dropping them and/or other students through large cracks in the education system or directly into the school-to-prison pipeline. Consequently, they each decided to pursue a legal career. 

Prior to becoming attorneys, both Princess and Crystal also had teaching experiences that shaped their views on education and student advocacy. Princess recalls being excited to teach an SAT prep course to eleventh and twelfth graders in West Philadelphia only to find out many of the students she was tasked with teaching could not read on grade level and did not know how to do basic math. When she brought her concerns to her supervisor, she was told to not have high expectations of her students because of “the area” and to just provide the students with “enough” to say you provided something. Princess saw how “dark suffering”—described by University of Georgia Professor Bettina Love as the perpetuation of norms that have often kept students of color from achieving upward mobility and caused them to be treated more like shadows than vessels to be poured into—is an extension of what marginalized communities face in our larger society, understanding that such is the result of a greater scheme of institutional racism.

Crystal, just a few years later, would have her own formative teaching experience as a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant in Taiwan. While she was grateful for the positive impacts she was able to have on her students, she was always observing how the systems in which she was teaching perpetuated historical racism, oppression, and poverty against her rural, Indigenous students. She was also constantly reminded of similar circumstances for people of color at home in the United States.

Crystal sought a fellowship where she could be housed at Texas Appleseed because she saw it as the best way to use both her law and public policy degrees.

I am a firm believer that policy changes to the law should be grounded in real-life experiences with the law. I wanted to use my experiences in direct representation to guide and anchor my policy work.

— Crystal

Princess had the distinct honor of becoming one of ten inaugural scholars for the Marshall-Motley Scholarship Program. This program—named in honor of the first Black Supreme Court Justice, Thurgood Marshall, and the first Black woman to serve on the federal bench, Constance Baker-Motley—is a groundbreaking pipeline program that intends to endow the South with the next generation of civil rights lawyers. Scholars are provided with a full scholarship to any law school, earn paid summer internship opportunities, and a post-graduate fellowship placement in preparation for an eight year commitment to practicing civil rights law in the South.

Princess and Crystal now get to use their hard- and well-earned skills—and further hone them – to serve and advocate for Texas youth. In addition to representing students in education and school discipline settings, they are drafting potential legislation that could shape or reshape exclusionary discipline, researching the detrimental effect of school closings on students and communities, advocating for the elimination of unnecessary Disciplinary Alternative Education Programs and seeking more due process where they remain, filing civil rights complaints against school districts who participate in racism and racial discrimination or allow it to go unchecked, engaging in grassroots organizing, and creating self-help and know-your-rights materials for students and parents to effectively navigate school discipline processes.

They both acknowledge that the work is not easy, with Crystal stating that “learning how to do education law on the spot is like drinking from a fire hydrant,” and Princess acknowledging that “right now [] challenges are coming in from all sides” with the rollback of diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts, attacks on critical race theory and learning about history that is incorrectly described as it, and a harsh political climate. However, they also know that it is advocates like them who are standing on the front lines with students amplifying their needs, wants, and rights.

Always, always, prioritize the voice of the children you’re serving first. Not other adult advocates—the children.

— Crystal

They are fighting for students' voices to be heard, especially those who have historically been marginalized. Their work, dedication, and experiences are a testament to the power of diversity in law and policy and the immense impact it can have on children's lives. 

Their words of advice for future lawyers who want to become advocates for children: 

• Princess citing a mentor of hers, Geraldine Sumpter, with grounded optimism stated, “[W]ake up every day and swing at the change you want to see. You’re bound to hit something eventually.”
• Crystal, ever practical stated, “Always go back to your why. Also, take a nap when you need to.”

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