Gruber Program Names 2017–18 Fellows

The Gruber Program for Global Justice and Women’s Rights at Yale Law School announced the 2017–2018 Peter and Patricia Gruber Fellows in Global Justice and Women’s Rights: Nicole Collins ’17 YSPH, Edwin Garcia ’17 FES, Olivia Horton ’17, Scout Katovich ’17, and Zain Rizvi ’17. Each fellow has developed a yearlong project in collaboration with a host organization that aims to advance global justice and women’s rights. The Gruber Program Fellowships are a university-wide program, established to support projects and graduates and recent alumni from all Yale graduate and professional schools.

Nicole Collins ’17 YSPH
Peter and Patricia Gruber Fellow in Women’s Rights
Nicole Collins will be partnering with the Rosebud Sioux Tribe’s Tribal Health Administration to help restructure its maternal and child health (MCH) program. The Rosebud Sioux Tribe, located in South Dakota, is reforming its health care delivery system by establishing a focused, adaptive, accessible, and comprehensive health care system based on Lakota values. Collins will assist in the development of MCH policies and procedures, along with a comprehensive curriculum that will educate young mothers on prenatal and postpartum reproductive health. After graduating from Northwestern University in 2011, Collins taught middle school science and health at Rosebud’s tribal school for four years through Teach for America. Her master’s thesis examines the reproductive decision-making and sex education experiences of teenage Lakota parents by analyzing interviews she conducted on Rosebud in the summer of 2016 with young mothers and fathers.

Edwin Garcia ’17 FES
Peter and Patricia Gruber Fellow in Global Justice
Edwin Garcia will be collaborating with Fundación Cordillera Tropical (FTC) and the Ministry of Environment in Ecuador to develop an environmentally sound management plan for a “green” highway for the benefit of the Huangras, an indigenous community living in the Sangay National Park. The highway, the construction of which is set to start in 2017, will provide the community with a way to access drinking water, health services, and education; it will also reduce travel time to local markets by as much as eight hours. At the same time, the management plan will take into account both the conservation objectives of the national park and the indigenous and identity rights of the Huangras community. Prior to his studies at Yale, Garcia co-founded and worked with Mingo Design LLC, a landscape design company. He received a Master of Science in Industrial Engineering from NYU and holds a B.E. from the University of Cuenca.

Olivia Horton ’17
Peter and Patricia Gruber Fellow in Women’s Rights
Olivia Horton will provide legal assistance to pregnant and parenting youth seeking welfare benefits, including cash, nutrition, and child care. Hosted by Greater Boston Legal Services’ Welfare Law Unit, she will collaborate with local social services providers to connect with and holistically support parenting youth. Ensuring access to services will promote women' rights and dignity at the most basic level, allowing low-income young people to stabilize and focus on their work, education, health, and the needs of their families. Because parents’ security and health has profound effects on children’s social, emotional, physical, and economic well-being, the goal of this work addresses their needs in tandem with improving long-term outcomes for families as a whole. Horton’s project will involve trauma-informed direct legal services, community engagement, and ultimately systemic advocacy based on patterns of need.
Before joining Yale Law School’s Class of 2017, Horton graduated from Wesleyan University with a BA in Government and Anthropology and a Certificate in Social, Cultural, & Critical Theory.

Scout Katovich ’17
Peter and Patricia Gruber Fellow in Women’s Rights
Scout Katovich will work with the New York Civil Liberties Union to help rescind nuisance ordinances across New York state that have the effect of harming domestic violence survivors. Nuisance ordinances allow cities to cite a property as a nuisance when it is associated with a certain number of nuisance behaviors, ranging from calling the police to assault. Once a property is cited, the owner must abate the nuisance, or face fines or closure. Abatement most often means evicting the tenants associated with the nuisance. Thus, these ordinances disproportionately impact survivors of domestic violence, who risk eviction when they call the police. These ordinances exacerbate survivors’ housing insecurities. During her fellowship year, Katovich will engage with various New York cities to repeal nuisance ordinances and to pass laws that that protect the human rights of domestic violence survivors. Kavovich will also litigate to challenge ordinances in New York that punish domestic violence survivors for calling the police. At law school Katovich has been an active member of the Allard K. Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic and the San Francisco Affirmative Litigation Project. She also served as a board member of Law Students for Reproductive Justice. Prior to attending Yale Law School, she spent a year in Paris, France, conducting research on urban planning and inequality through a Fulbright Grant and worked for two years at Human Rights Watch on issues related to international criminal justice. Katovich received her B.A. from Columbia University.

Zain Rizvi ’17
Peter and Patricia Gruber Fellow in Global Justice
Zain Rizvi will work with SECTION27 to support the health and human rights movement in South Africa. More than twenty years after the end of apartheid, South Africa remains a deeply unequal society—in everything from income to life expectancy. The South African Constitution, one of the most progressive in the world, enshrines a range of socioeconomic rights to address these stark inequalities, including the right to health care. Rizvi will assist SECTION27 in legal advocacy and other strategies against a provincial health department for its failure to provide emergency medical services. He will also work with local coalitions to advocate for a national intellectual property policy that increases access to medicines. Rizvi graduated from McMaster University (BHSc) and is a writer on health policy, law, and human rights. His writing has appeared in medical and legal journals, as well as Ottawa Citizen and The Washington Post.