Needed: cultural change, short term and long term

Personal Statement: What attracts me to the UDC David A. Clarke School of Law

(Shira) Destinie Jones

There are two answers to the question of why I am interested in pursuing a legal education. The first answer speaks to the short-term needs of the most vulnerable here in the District of Columbia. The second looks farther along, into the longer term need for cultural change and ultimately to the kind of society we wish to hand down to posterity. It is my fervent hope that by becoming a public service advocate in the District of Columbia, I will be able to bring both some solutions to these immediate short-term needs together with helping to lay the foundations for longer-term goals of societal change. As for why I have chosen UDC´s David A. Clarke School of Law, as an education and history professional, I am attracted to the tradition of the Antioch School of Law, now part of UDC, for it´s history of immediate and concrete service to the local community, and for the high percentage of public service lawyers regularly graduated from this law school. I hope to be among classmates with whom I share ideals and a keen sense of dedication to public service.

In my business as a newly licensed Washington DC Tour Guide, I have begun giving walking tours of some Early Integration Neighborhoods of DC. My purpose in creating and leading these tours is to highlight cases of effective community cooperation to bridge the racial divide in key historical neighborhoods of the District of Columbia. I also teach and tutor remedial and high school level mathematics at both the secondary and the community college level. These two types of education, tours and classroom teaching, form a cultural complement to the more tangible form of community advocacy accomplished in the legal arena. I view education and cultural-historical awareness as a longer-term aspect of one crucial side of the community building coin. I see public service advocacy as a short-term aspect of the other side of this urgently needed community building coin. Public service advocacy linked to cooperative community involvement, as with the DC Youth Court, shows that both short term and long-term goals can also be effectively combined to achieve both immediate as well as longer term results. Indeed, whether addressed separately or together, both sides of the coin are equally necessary. Public legal advocacy is an immediate and practical application of the same community spirit which works to bind individuals and neighborhoods together in a spirit of common purpose. That common purpose is built over many years through education and inter-community cooperation. For me that purpose is ultimately to help amplify the voice of each person to enable full and meaningfully participation in our democracy, and to help as many people as possible build the knowledge and skills needed to reach their full potential as human beings.

My research degree, a Master of Philosophy in the area of economic social policy related to participatory decision-making in currency institutions, began as part of my long-term quest for ways to nurture kind and cooperative community as widely as possible. The specific social policy work stemmed from my desire to to render public service in a policy area which has a fundamental impact on the life of each person in our society. After some years of working on the dissertation, I came to understand that academic theory, while important, can be less immediately practical than on the ground legal work. Given the urgent need for legal advocates willing to work on behalf of the least fortunate, which I have seen at first hand recently through the eviction and medical-related trials being experienced by one of my neighbors, my experience as an activist drives me to work to help solve these pressing short-term problems while continuing to lay the groundwork toward longer-term ideals to which we can all aspire. I see that there are some problems which require the right credentials in order to be solved effectively that cannot wait for the long-term theoretical approaches to be fully operationalized. Thus, in order to attain the solid credentials and grounding in practical problem solving which I need in order to help solve immediate and pressing problems in my local community, I have chosen a law school with a history of prioritizing ideals and practical goals to which I also aspire.

Individual identity and community belonging have been key issues in my life from the start. My early childhood in New Jersey showed me the importance to single mothers like mine of programs and institutions such as school lunches and public libraries, which helped us not only to function but also to dream of possibilities. Yet these programs seemed to lack a way of binding individuals together as a community. My teen years in DC with my father showed me the importance of understanding identity in the context of community. I work to uphold both my individual and community values by building bridges through writing, giving tours, and singing in venues that bring communities together.

Thus, as a public service advocate in training at the UDC Antioch School of Law, I would hope to be in good company, preparing alongside like minded people, to serve the community via both short-term practical approaches and longer-term cultural-historical approaches, working to change both our ways of doing and ways of thinking, to make our democratic system work effectively for all members of society.

(Shira) Destinie Jones, Mphil, MAT, BSc

Read, Write, Run, Teach !

ShiraDest
12 February, 12016 HE