In fall 2016, René J. Valenzuela was a freshman with a full-tuition scholarship at Pomona College in Claremont, California. He’d worked hard to get there. At his parents’ urging, he had made school his top priority almost since his family arrived in Chicago from Mexico when he was 4 years old.

Also in fall 2016, Donald Trump won the presidency after campaigning largely on the promise to build a wall between the U.S. and Mexico, to immediately terminate DACA, and to deport millions of immigrants.

Valenzuela and his friends at Pomona—many of whom were first-generation college students who had come from low-income, immigrant households—discussed their anxiety about living in a country that had elected a president pledging to target immigrants. 

“We also recognized how many others in the community would feel similarly,” Valenzuela says. “We asked ourselves what people would need, and we started organizing.” (By 2020, Latines would make up more than 50 percent of the Inland Empire, as Claremont’s region of Southern California is known.)

The resulting know-your-rights event connected immigrants in the community with organizations that could assist with issues related to health care, employment, and fraud. Valenzuela’s job was to recruit lawyers who could offer pro bono immigration consultations.

“Over 300 people showed up, and we were able to offer more than 80 consultations,” Valenzuela says. “That experience showed me that I could do something really impactful for my community.”

The path to Skadden

When Valenzuela decided to apply to law schools, he focused on education justice for youth. Loyola University Chicago became his preferred school after learning about the Civitas ChildLaw Fellowship, which he received.

As a 1L student, Valenzuela joined Stand Up For Each Other (SUFEO), a student-run organization that provides free assistance to families of K-12 students facing issues in school, including suspension or expulsion. Jackie Ross, SUFEO’s faculty supervisor, soon recommended him to Equip for Equality (EFE), a Chicago-based nonprofit serving people with disabilities in Illinois.

Valenzuela’s fulfilling experiences as an intern for EFE’s Special Education Clinic and a volunteer with initiatives to support immigrants in Chicago compelled him to consider ways he could support migrants arriving in the city.

“For those families [who have children with disabilities]—who have a language barrier and don’t know even their basic rights in schools—special education is an additional legal labyrinth that’s almost impossible to navigate,” he says. “That’s what brought me to my proposal.”

That proposal will soon be funded by the highly competitive Skadden Fellowship. Annually, the Skadden Foundation receives about 200 applications for its 28 two-year, paid fellowships that support self-designed projects in public interest law. (Valenzuela is the second School of Law student to receive a Skadden in as many years. Read Nneka Ugwu’s story.)

Through his project—for which EFE will serve as his required host organization—Valenzuela will promote awareness of education rights among immigrant families who have children with disabilities, and he will serve as a legal representative for families at IEP meetings, mediations, and due process hearings. His plans hinge on partnering with community organizations that have already established trust with immigrants, who feel “real fear because of their status,” he says.

Valenzuela will graduate in May and start his project in September.

“Getting the Skadden feels like an affirmation,” he says, “not just of my work, but of my whole community.” –Liz Miller (January 2025)