High School
Seniors: Become an ACLU Youth Activist Scholar!
The
American Civil Liberties Union is offering 15 of the
nation’s most committed, young civil liberties activists
$7,000 each toward their first year in college.
Winners will also become part of an elite class of
scholar-activists who will be invited to participate in
ongoing activities with the ACLU, including the Youth
Activist Institute training program at the ACLU National
office in New York City.
We
are looking for students who have stood up for civil
liberties, tolerance, free speech, and equality! Past
scholarship winners were recognized for a wide variety of
civil liberties activism including:
Ø
Creating and teaching a class for
middle school students that aimed to lower the risk that
they would enter into the "school-to-prison" pipeline
Ø
Challenging a principle’s policy
of punishing students for writing “gay pride” on their arms
and notebooks
Ø
Advocating on behalf of Native
American youth in the juvenile justice system
Ø
Producing and hosting a youth
radio program focusing on LGBTQ rights and issues
Ø
Working with school officials to
ensure that intelligent design would no longer be taught in
the public schools
Ø
Starting an organization to get
teen girls involved in the decisions that effect them, such
as policies on sexual harassment and access to comprehensive
reproductive healthcare
To
qualify for the scholarship you must:
Ø
Have demonstrated a strong
commitment to civil liberties through some form of activism
Ø
Be a high school senior planning
on entering an accredited college or university as a
full-time, degree-seeking student
Ø
Have attained a cumulative GPA of
3.0 on a 4.0 scale at the time of graduation
Ø
Not be a current ACLU plaintiff or
witness in a legal case
To be considered for the ACLU Youth
Activist Scholarship your local ACLU affiliate must nominate
you for consideration. Please contact the Youth
Scholarship Coordinator at the ACLU of Oklahoma, Tamya Cox,
at
tcox@acluok.org
for details about the scholarship.
Tamya Cox will explain the application process to you in
detail, ask you some questions about your involvement in
civil liberties activism and, if you qualify, send you
scholarship application forms and counsel you on how to
proceed.
Activists who complete the application forms will be judged
on the following standards (in order of importance):
Ø
The strength and depth of the
candidate’s contributions to civil liberties
Ø
Demonstrated leadership
Ø
The likelihood of the applicant
continuing commitment to civil liberties in the future
Ø
Commitment to academic excellence
Ø
Demonstrated financial need
If
you are passionate about protecting, and fighting for, the
Constitutional rights of everyone contact your
local ACLU affiliate and apply for the ACLU Youth Activist
Scholarship!
Deadline for submissions is November 20, 2009.
Click
here
if you are the parent of a student activist.
