MMSP Cohort 3
Jordan Andrews
Jordan Andrews, who calls Michigan home, graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science, American Public Policy, and French & Africana Studies.
During her undergraduate experience, Jordan was the founding board member of Beyond Arrests Rethinking Systematic Oppression (BARS), where she campaigned for Philadelphia’s “Ban the Box'' protections to help returning citizens seeking employment and where she fought for the movement to end cash bail. Jordan also established BARS as an organizational plaintiff for the Legal Defense Fund (LDF) to challenge prison-based gerrymandering statewide. After college, Jordan continued her commitment to improving the lives of Black people as a Director’s Financial Analyst at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), where she provided support for individuals in the criminal justice system as well as those experiencing housing insecurity in the deep South.
After graduating law school, she intends to wield the law as a civil rights attorney through direct client service and impact litigation. Jordan aspires to play a role in creating a country in which Black families get to stay in their homes while also eradicating punitive and inhumane policies that police and criminalize Blackness.
Andrew Brennen
Andrew Brennen is a Kentucky native who graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and furthered his education at Harvard University with a Master of Education in Education Policy & Management. Andrew’s interest in civil rights law stems from his deep-seated commitment to racial justice and civil rights, specific to addressing the inequities pervading Kentucky public schools.
Throughout Andrew’s time in North Carolina, and with the help of the Lawyer’s Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, he made the decision to become a defendant-intervenor in Students for Fair Admission v. University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill affirmative action case. Andrew co-founded the Kentucky Student Voice team and currently serves on the Kentucky Higher Education Assistance Authority board of directors, appointed by Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear as well as chairperson of the Seek Common Ground board of directors.
With his law degree, Andrew hopes to stand before the Kentucky Supreme Court, representing a group of public school students across The Commonwealth, arguing that the condition of Kentucky public schools violates the right to a quality education guaranteed by the Kentucky state constitution.
Ashley Conyers
Ashley Conyers is a Florida native who graduated from the University of South Florida with a Bachelor of Arts in Communications and a Master of Business Administration. With deep ties to rural Georgia, including connections with community organizations throughout the entire state, Ashley’s interest in civil rights originated from her early life experience with housing insecurity, which she believes to be just the beginning of her journey to public advocacy and social justice.
This past year, Ashley began work as an AmeriCorps Data VISTA Volunteer, where she led a community initiative to implement Community Identification Cards for homeless and displaced individuals at the National Legal Aid & Defense Association within the Law Office of the Public Defender.
As a civil rights attorney, Ashley hopes to be a legal advocate actively working to aid in the abolishment of the human rights crises of mass incarceration, racial injustice, and poverty.
Zachari Curtis
Zachari Curtis is a South Carolina native and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Cultural Anthropology with an honors distinction from Duke University. Zachari has founded several grassroots advocacy groups, including the Community Farming Alliance (CFA), Healthy Affordable Food for All (HAFA), and The Black Farm CSA Produce Subscription Service, all of which focus on defending the rights of Black people to have access to healthy food. As a Fulbright Scholar in Sociology and Black Studies, Zachari advised the Black Supply Chain Committee of the National Black Food Justice Alliance and provided business planning for a multi-state Black Farmer cooperative enterprise in Maryland, Virginia, South Carolina, and Georgia. Zachari also launched the Dream Black Food Fund, which delivers technical assistance and $150k in grant funding to Black farmers to boost wholesale readiness.
These efforts and advocacy have earned Zachari the Duke University Paul Farmer Award for Justice and Social Responsibility, as well as an appointment to the USDA's Urban Agriculture and Innovative Production Federal Advisory Committee, where Zachari makes policy recommendations to the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack. Coming from a family of Black farmers who were pushed off their land because of discrimination, Zachari is committed to eradicating racial injustice in agriculture. Having studied the civil rights history of Black farmers and agricultural workers, Zachari feels called to law school to seek justice for those who have been harmed by systemic inequality and to defend against attacks on civil rights.
Ashonti Farrior
Ashonti Farrior is a North Carolina native who graduated from the University of Florida with a Bachelor of Science in Advertising. Ashonti is passionate about racial justice, civil rights, and education opportunities specific to the Black youth in the South. With her passion for amplifying Black voices and supporting Black youth in academic spaces, despite pandemic setbacks, during her sophomore year, Ashonti was able to help Black seniors prepare for college applications during her directorship of the Black Student Union’s Excellence Scholars program at the University of Florida. The same year, as a way to amplify Black politicians’ platforms, and the need for voter education within underrepresented regions, Ashonti joined the Florida Student Power Network (FLSPN). Here she helped combat the disenfranchisement and voter suppression of minority voters in Florida caused by exclusionary zoning and a lack of education on the voting process through a student-led campaign.
Ashonti is dedicated to practicing law in the South and utilizing education as a way to overcome racial inequity for current and future generations. With her law degree, Nastassia will center her advocacy in the South because the consequences of modern-day slavery impact those she is connected to. She aims to provide legal counsel, representation, and training to those whose civil rights have been violated.
Tristan Gardner
Tristan Gardner is a life-long Alabamian, earning both his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Social Work from the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. As a member of the Tuscaloosa chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), Tristan helped advocate against the cash-bail bond system, an unjust window tinting law, and a “gun-present” policy that targeted and adversely impacted Black citizens in West Tuscaloosa, a predominantly black community. He also currently serves as Parent and Family Community Engagement Coordinator for the West Alabama Head Start/Early Head Start Program, a program that supports Black students and families with comprehensive early childhood education, health, nutrition, and parent involvement services to low-income families.
Tristan wants to use his law degree to become a civil rights attorney to help eradicate racism and prevent future immobility of communities of color in his home state. He also believes in prison reform and advocating for livable and humane jail and prison conditions, asserting that the current criminal legal system is excessively obsessed with black bodies and mass incarceration.
Danielle Hopkins
Danielle Hopkins is from Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts and graduated from Barnard College of Columbia University in 2021 with a Bachelor of Arts in American History and a minor in Spanish and Latin American Studies.
After graduation, Danielle moved to Houston, Texas, to live with her extended family and to work as a Client Advocate at the Harris County Public Defender's Office, an experience that confirmed her desire to live in the South and solidified her disillusionment towards the criminal legal system and belief in prison abolition. While living in Houston she engaged in community grassroots efforts with the Houston Abolitionist Collective and Social Justice Solutions, colloquially known as Hoochies of Houston, a Black women led organization dedicated to empowering and protecting Black women. With Social Justice Solutions Danielle helped organize the Mahogany Women’s March and organized care package drives for unhoused people, among other community initiatives.
Danielle intends to provide legal advocacy rooted in abolition to better address the systemic problems brought about by racism and socio-economic inequality throughout all United States legal systems. With her law degree, she plans to advocate for people on both the individual and systemic levels to make systemic changes rooted in an abolitionist lens.
Arianna Mackey
Arianna Mackey is a Virginia native and a graduating senior from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University (NCAT) with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science. Arianna is dedicated to using legal education to be a fierce environmental justice advocate — remedying environmental harms imposed on minority communities and preventing future injustices from taking place.
Throughout Arianna’s undergraduate career, she has interned with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Environmental Defense Fund. With food insecurity at top of mind, and a total of 50 hours served at Harvest City food bank, Arianna decided to co-found Black Bus Inc., a non-profit created to provide healthy and accessible food to those who are underserved in Guilford County, North Carolina.
Arianna is committed to using her law degree to advocate for racial justice and civil rights in the area of environmental justice and protection based on the resulting adverse health effects on Black and lower-income people living in the South.
Trenaj Mongo
Trenaj Mongo is a DMV native and a graduating senior who will earn his Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science from Morehouse College with minors in Criminal Justice and Sociology in 2023.
As a student, Trenaj is the President of the Morehouse College Moot Court Team and was named the third-highest orator in the nation in 2022. He also assisted public defenders in developing trial skills while interning at Gideon’s Promise and volunteered with multiple mentorship programs in Atlanta that supported black youth. In the summer of 2022, he interned at the Court of Appeals of Georgia, where he had the opportunity to work with Judge Stephen Dillard and analyze oral arguments before the Court of Appeals and the Georgia Supreme Court.
Trenaj aspires to use his law degree to follow in the footsteps of others who have begun to fight for racial equality. Trenaj draws his inspiration for Southern civil rights from those who have blazed the trail before him, including Bryan Stevenson and his memoir “Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption,” as well as Charles Hamilton Houston and his efforts to dismantle Jim Crow.
Sondos Moursy
Sondos Moursy is a Louisiana native by way of Egypt and earned her degree from the University of Houston. Despite her responsibilities as a Division I NCAA athlete, Sondos has never wavered in her efforts to advocate for racial justice and empower marginalized communities.
In particular, she found her passion in supporting and advocating on behalf of incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people of color. As a team member in the Mayor's Office of Complete Communities in Houston, Texas, Sondos played a key role in designing an equitable training and employment program that helped fill the gap in legal employment opportunities for formerly incarcerated women of color. She also helped organize the Healing Injustice Conference, where lawyers, social workers, community health workers, and data scientists presented holistic legal defenses for underprivileged incarcerated people of color.
Sondos has received multiple awards for her work in public service, including the 2022 Phi Beta Kappa’s Key into Public Service Award and the William Randolph Hearst Endowed Fellowship. Her desire to advocate on behalf of Black communities hinges on her belief that the prosperity and well-being of our nation will always be at stake as long as we continue to fail to protect the disadvantaged from those in political power.