2021 Peggy Browning Fellows

2021 Peggy Browning Summer Fellows Kelly Reeves JD’22 University of Colorado Law School Boulder, CO New Mexico Center on Law and Poverty Albuquerque, NM The daughter of public high school teachers, Kelly grew up in Indiana. She started her career in journalism and social work, working with newly arrived refugees and immigrants in reception and placement, youth programming and medical case management. She witnessed the importance of workers’ rights and the role of employment in stabilizing individual lives, families and communities. After serving in the U.S. Peace Corps inGuyana and Jamaica, she returned to the United States and pursued a master’s degree in social work focusing on societal systems and interventions. During graduate school Kelly worked for Towards Justice, a non-profit law firm that uses impact litigation, public policy and grassroots organizing to improve working conditions for marginalized workers. In law school, she works in the Civil Practice Clinic.  Abigaíl Ramos   JD’22 City University of New York School of Law  Long Island City, NY Make the Road NewYork New York, NY  Also a child of Mexican farmworker immigrants, Abigaíl is a first-generation student from the Yakima Valley of Washington State. She grew up in an agricultural community where she saw the exploitative practices against her community. Abigaíl’s upbringing fueled her passion and devotion for workers who are not protected by the NLRA and hopes to work within the juxtaposition of employment, immigration, and criminal justice law. During law school, Abigaíl was a co-chair of Labor Coalition, staff editor of CUNY Law Review and was a 2020 Sorensen Center for International Peace and Justice fellow. She has previously worked for Justice in Motion, Legal Action Center, Northwest Immigrant Rights Project, and Northwest Justice Project. She currently is a Tow Policy Advocacy Fellow at the Osborne Association.   Heddy Pierce-Armstrong JD’22 University of Kansas School of Law Lawrence, KS Pyle Rome Ehrenberg, PC Boston, MA Her earliest memories include watching her machinist mother actively participate in monthly union meetings and picketing. Heddy realized the positive impact unions consistently make, and dedicated her future to protecting workers’ rights. A native Kansan, she witnessed the negative implications of weakened labor protections and took an indirect path to law school that further shaped her commitment to workers across the country. After becoming a mother, Heddy returned to school to complete her degree in Gender and Sexuality Studies that concluded with a public policy proposal to end right-to-work legislation. In law school she created a targeted labor curriculum, though her school did not have a formal program. Heddy spent her first summer with Disability Rights Center. She’s involved in numerous student organizations including Mock Trial, Moot Court, OUTLaws and Allies, BLSA, and Mediation Clinic. Heather Ramirez JD’23 City University of New York School of Law Long Island City, NY Farmworker Justice Washington, DC Heather is a first-generation college and law student who seeks to be a resource and work alongside marginalized communities in their fight for justice.  Her interest in law developed after attempting to unionize a former workplace. Before law school, Heather was a paralegal at The Legal Aid Society, representing public housing tenants in their cases against the New York City Housing Authority.  In addition, she is a grassroots journalist for Working Class Heroes Radio on WBAI FM. She and her radio team have covered social movements across New York City including labor strikes. Heather is ecstatic to be a Peggy Browning Fellow this summer, especially given her family’s history of being farmworkers in Texas when migrating from México.