Two AMSOL students in the news

As frequent readers of this blog know, we try to highlight the achievements of the AMSOL community when we can (or at least when we have the time to do so). Here are two such recent achievements.
Courtesy Ave Maria School of Law website


Ave Maria Student Elected Chairman of Michigan College Republicans

Daniel Carlson, a first-year law student at Ave Maria School of Law, has been elected to the position of chairman for the Michigan Federation of College Republicans (MFCR), a state-wide organization with more than 10,000 college-student members.

For the past six months, Carlson has been the acting chair of MFCR, due to the resignation of Sam Moore, the 2005 elected chair; but his election marks the beginning of Carlson’s first full term in the office. In this position, Carlson will oversee all 23 Michigan MFCR chapters.

MFCR is an organization established to create future leaders of the Republican Party and build a network to benefit all College Republican members and the entire Republican Party. The majority of its membership is comprised of undergraduate students; however, the organization does have an active group of graduate members as well. As chair, Carlson will be the spokesperson for MFCR members and the official liaison between MFCR and all Republican officials.

While completing his undergraduate work at Kalamazoo College, Carlson founded a chapter of the College Republicans and worked to make it one of the most active chapters of the state of Michigan, participating in events such as the 2004 George W. Bush campaign and the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative.

Carlson credits his friends and family with assisting him in attaining this position and says he also received encouragement from members of the Law School community.

"There is no way I could do this from any other law school in the country," says Carlson. "It is the supportive, understanding, and spiritual environment that Ave Maria provides that makes this possible."


Ave Maria Student Wins Religious Freedom Law Fellowship

Diamond Zukas, a second-year law student at Ave Maria School of Law, has been selected to receive the inaugural International Religious Freedom Law Fellowship for the summer of 2006. Zukas is one of only three students nationwide to be selected for this award, which is given by Freedom House’s Center for Religious Freedom.

Fellowship recipients are awarded $5,000 to pursue summer internships in the field of international religious freedom in Washington, D.C. This year’s recipients, which include students from Stanford Law School and Georgetown University Law Center, will work at the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom and at the Center for Religious Freedom.

Zukas is the vice president of the Women’s Law Association at Ave Maria and a member of the Law School’s Moot Court Board. During the summer of 2005, she worked as a legal intern at the U.S. Embassy in Lithuania, where she conducted research on the integration of European Union laws into the Lithuanian system.

Freedom House, founded in 1941 by Eleanor Roosevelt and Wendell Willkie, is America’s oldest human rights group and a vigorous proponent of democratic values. Its Center for Religious Freedom defends against religious persecution of all groups throughout the world and advocates the right to religious freedom of every individual.