The Robert L. Carter Fellowship

The Robert L. Carter Fellowship is a two-year fellowship designed for recent law school graduates to participate in the legal and policy research and advocacy at The Opportunity Agenda. The position is named in honor of Judge Robert L. Carter, who sits in the federal Southern District of New York (Manhattan). Judge Carter was the primary architect of the innovative strategy in Brown v. Board of Education that used social scientists to track and reveal the negative effects of school segregation upon African American children. In light of Judge Carter’s work, the Fellowship is designed to pursue innovative strategies at the intersection of the law and social science policy research to forward opportunity and human rights in the United States. Activities include legal, administrative, and policy research and advocacy; support of litigation, either directly or through assisting in the drafting of amicus curiae briefs; and collaboration and coalition-building with local and national social justice partners.

The Carter Fellow is directly supervised by the Director of Law and Advocacy, and is based in The Opportunity Agenda's New York City office. The Carter Fellowship is supported through the generous contributions of individuals, former Carter clerks, and law firms. If you are interested in supporting this position, please click here.

The inaugural Carter Fellow was Kevin Shawn Hsu. The current Carter Fellow is Nerissa Kunakemakorn.

Year One Accomplishments:
The first year of the Fellowship has seen a great number of opportunities and successes stemming from The Opportunity Agenda’s commitment to the integration of communications, research, and advocacy tools. In the first two years of the Carter Fellowship, the Fellow’s work has and will focus in large part on expanding health opportunity by centering equity in ongoing state and national efforts to reform America’s health system. The Fellow also participated in The Opportunity Agenda’s efforts to expand the national discussion of policy through the lens of the progressive values of opportunity, including the need to uphold Americans’ fundamental human rights here at home.

Activities and accomplishments of the Fellow over the past year include:

  • Helped draft landmark legislation in Connecticut recognizing an equal opportunity to enjoy the highest attainable standard of health as a human right, and establishing a commission to address racial and ethnic barriers to that right.  This legislation was passed and signed into law in the summer of 2008;
  • Co-authored an amicus curiae brief for the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in the case of Loeffler v. Staten Island University Hospital, arguing for a robust interpretation of the New York City Human Rights Law to protect against discriminating effects in health care and to implement international human rights principles;
  • Drafted a significant portion of the ‘Health’ chapter of the New York City shadow report to the U. N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination; provided guidance to the New York City shadow report coordinating committee on language regarding the duty of local governments to implement the Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination; and provided editing assistance for the ‘Health’ chapter of the national shadow report coordinated by the US Human Rights Network;
  • Drafted and submitted testimony to the New York Departments of Health and Insurance on challenges and solutions to the equal opportunity to access quality health care; and
  • Contributed to several policy coalitions, including the Coalition for Community Health Planning which seeks to reform distribution of health care resources in New York City according to community need, and the Health Care For All New York coalition, which seeks progressive health care system reform.

Additionally, the Fellow has been responsible for a number of publications, presentations, and media appearances that include:

  • Co-authored a Fordham Law Review article, American Ideals & Human Rights: Findings from New Public Opinion Research by The Opportunity Agenda that outlines research on how Americans think about social justice issues through a framework of human rights;
  • Presented on the use of the Opportunity Values frame at Demos’ “A Better Deal” Conference in Washington, D.C., May 9, 2008;
  • Presented on the right to health care under the New York State Constitution at a health care policy panel at Cardozo Law School in New York City, October 29, 2008;
  • Radio: Guest on “Health Action” (WBAI, New York 99.5 FM Pacifica Radio broadcast, May 5, 2008), discussing the release of a report co-authored by The Opportunity Agenda and Families USA that examines the best practices of health equity policies at the state level and in the context of state-level health care reform; and

Applying for the Carter Fellowship:
We are not currently accepting applications for the Carter Fellowship. Thank you for your interest.