Human Rights Minor Gabby Crooks is recipient of the 2023-24 Tom Ford Fellowship in Philanthropy

Stanford Human Rights Minor, Gabby Crooks, has been selected as a recipient of the 2023-24 Tom Ford Fellowship in Philanthropy by the Haas Center for Public Service. As an emerging scholar, Gabby is passionate about human rights, in both domestic and international contexts, sustainable development, and environmental justice. Drawing inspiration from her background as a child of Caribbean immigrants, Gabby has direct interest in issues of human migration and has committed herself to this area of study during her time at Stanford.

Gabby’s passion for policy and advocacy have remained at the forefront of her academic and professional pursuits. As an honors student at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, Gabby is working on a thesis exploring the World Bank’s Inspection Panel, the first accountability mechanism of its kind within a multilateral financial institution. Her research examines the efficacy of the panel in the face of its mandate over time, interrogating if its promises of accountability to communities impacted by its development projects and financing ring true. She has also taken various human rights courses directly grappling with pressing social issues such as our service learning course HUMRTS 108: Advanced Spanish Service-Learning: Migration, Asylum, and Human Rights at the Border as well as our cross listed Law School course HUMRTS 117: International Human Rights. Her forthcoming human rights capstone project will investigate how legal international human rights instruments have addressed the issue of climate migration in the Northern Triangle. 

Outside of her academics, Gabby is a dedicated Stanford community member holding leadership positions with Stanford Women in Law, the Black Recruitment and Orientation Committee, and Stanford in Government. She has worked as a student assistant for the Haas Center for Public Service and served in Stanford Undergraduate Senate for two years, where she advocated for student interests and served on the senate’s Appropriations Committee, providing grants to student organizations. 

As a Ford Fellow she will be working with a philanthropic foundation after graduation and hopes to explore how philanthropy can play a transformative role in addressing human rights issues domestically and abroad. 

Special thanks to the Haas Center for Public Service for content for this news item.