Human rights student Maggie Roache wins Tom Ford Fellowship in Philanthropy

Stanford Human Rights Minor and human rights summer fellow Maggie Roache has been named a 2022 Ford Fellow by the Haas Center for Public Service. Maggie’s passion for international human rights issues, particularly related to transitional justice and refugee rights, has been a driving force behind her time at Stanford.

As a human rights summer fellow through our center, Maggie performed an internship with the Guernica Centre for International Justice, where she conducted research on extrajudicial killings, political persecution, and crimes against humanity actively being committed in Venezuela.

As an honors student at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, Maggie has conducted original research on Spain’s recent accountability efforts addressing human rights crimes committed during the Franco era. She has guest lectured on this topic in our Center's course, HUMRTS 103: Transitional Justice, Human Rights, and International Criminal Tribunals.

Maggie is also dedicated to protecting the rights of refugees and asylum seekers. She took the service-learning course HUMRTS 108: Advanced Spanish Service-Learning: Migration, Asylum, and Human Rights at the Border, in which she documented asylum seekers' testimony for court proceedings. She has centered her human rights capstone project on the “Remain in Mexico” program and the social and political impact this has had on asylum seekers at the US/Mexico border; she specifically analyzed and synthesized reports on “Remain in Mexico” by human rights organizations and from personal interviews conducted with human rights advocates working on asylum issues/at the border. During a gap year, Maggie spent 15 weeks working remotely as a volunteer intern for Al Otro Lado, an immigrant rights nonprofit based in Tijuana, where she worked with asylum seekers in Mexico. She has also extensively studied the U.S. refugee admissions program through coursework, including, most recently, a Stanford Law School course where she and a team of students advised the American University of Afghanistan on potential immigration options for its affiliates.

As a Tom Ford Fellow in Philanthropy, Maggie aims to further develop her knowledge and experience in the pursuit of accountability for egregious human rights violations. She also hopes to learn more about the unique role that philanthropic foundations can play in response to international human rights crises, as they not traditionally bound by polarization or partisanship like many governments and multilateral organizations.

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