Public Service Scholarship of the Law Office of Shane Kadlec

My choice to go into public policy is a unique outcome of my background. Growing up in Texas as a Palestinian American woman, I feel comfortable saying I have witnessed injustice in this field in many forms. However, my understanding of said injustice has deepened further throughout my years of undergraduate studies. Learning about power dynamics and biases in court and law in general has made me more confident in my ability to work around them. Being a woman in a Middle Eastern family has undoubtedly influenced me. First, it was witnessing female family friends who turned down full rides for no reason other than the shame of moving out single. Then, it was working two jobs in high school because my father was not willing to pay my application fees. I began to understand the importance of the independence that my mother told me she wished for. I became passionate about self-sustainability after seeing a dependent situation trap so many I love. Public policy has failed me quite a few times. In Texas, that failure takes the form of decisions regarding welfare and bodily autonomy. In Palestine, it’s something I have to experience every time I drive up to the border and go through checkpoints, or have a 1 hour drive turned 3 because certain ethnicities are banned from certain roads, or when I watch all the men in my family get interrogated before prayer, or finally when I hear and see combat boots in my place of worship on what I thought was a regular day. It is for these countless witnesses and experiences growing up that I feel very passionate about public policy and the protections it’s meant to ensure, especially at the international level. Going into undergrad for international studies, I noticed a recurring theme. Despite the countless conferences, conventions, discussions, declarations, policies, or protocols, it almost seems as though policies exist in an educated, yet isolated world that assumes a declaration of what should be done will change what occurs on a daily basis. Unfortunately, the most thought-provoking question that could be asked in most of my classes was: what measures have been taken to ensure this will be implemented? For that reason, I hope to be able to enter international law and be able to keep in mind the application of theories and laws when analyzing or criticizing them. Finally, minoring in economics was something I was hesitant to do, but it has brought to my attention more aspects of public policy that are crucial to consider. For instance, behavioral economics taught me about how the biases of individuals can cascade down to the government, giving me a better understanding of how that might lead to injustice. This broader understanding of biases combined with my background of witnessing injustice has made me very passionate about public policy and its potential to improve. From here, I only hope that I can put my foot in the world of public policy for the better.