Carolyn Meckbach: I was always interested in law and public service, but during the past four years, I’ve been learning how important youth employment and career readiness is. My current job combines my interests in the justice system and youth career readiness as the Nelson and Lindsay Fellowship prepares students to enter law and legal work by giving them hands-on experience at the Moakley Courthouse. I always knew I would love to work with high school and college-aged students as they navigated their early career path. I didn’t have any career advisors in high school and I just had a lot of energy, interests and passions that I didn’t know what to do with. I felt a lot of pressure to know exactly what I wanted to do, and exactly how I should get there. I think there is so much pressure on young adults to have an exact idea of what they want for their future career, and it can place unfair weight on them that prevents them from exploring and taking risks and trying out different things. The Fellowship programs really allows students to explore their interests and be exposed to a variety of legal or policy-related careers.

I love the opportunity to work with federal judges in a personal and creative capacity. I also love working with our Fellows here who truly want to impact the justice system. I see students willing to hold adults around them accountable for how their decisions impact themselves and their communities, and I think young people now as a whole are increasingly aware of just how important their voices are and always have been to affecting change. Being able to work with students equipping themselves with legal and systematic knowledge has been a huge privilege and seeing how committed they are to changing institutions helps me to not get apathetic in doing the same where I am.

One more thing about my job is that I get a lot of meaning out of assisting the press and journalists cover court proceedings here. I really value the work they do. They take the important arguments and decisions happening here and make them accessible to the broader public who can’t always be present. 

Growing up in a small, rural town in central PA influenced me a ton. I used to hide that fact when I moved here initially, but now I embrace it. There are so many things I absolutely love about having grown up in a small farm town: the smells, all of the silence, country music, 4-wheeling, the creek down the road and being surrounded by so many trees and animals. I literally start to get so drained if I don’t recharge my energy by visiting there every few months. But, there are also things I have had to confront about being raised there that aren’t points of pride. There are many deep-rooted beliefs and mindsets from rural white America that are troubling, problematic, and directly impact the lives and well-being of people I love. It’s my responsibility to have consistent conversations with people from back home to address racial disparity, racial bigotry, and religious discrimination like Islamophobia. It’s also necessary to talk about gun violence, LGBTQ+ stigma and shaming, especially in smaller religious communities, and abortion rights. 

I think about my young nieces and nephews growing up in my hometown and how I want them to access other perspectives and to form friendships with people who are different from them, so that they understand their interwoven stake in justice. I don’t excuse the xenophobia that comes from areas like mine – but I do know how it is spurred on and maintained – so I want to take responsibility for how it shaped me and work with others to confront it.

Probably one of the bigger personal obstacles I’ve faced, was coming from a heavily religious family and learning to decide for myself what I believed spiritually. Also, growing up in that environment also made me shy away from understanding and embracing my sexual orientation while I was growing up (I’m bi). I think connecting with and reading stories from others who have had similar experiences has been the most helpful way to grow.

Another obstacle has been my anxiety, which has gotten so much better. At one point, five or six years ago, it was so bad that I would literally have to take breaks from talking to people just to try to breathe in the nearest bathroom. This was so strange to me because before that point, I was such a social and carefree person. Unless you’ve experienced it, I don’t think you understand how debilitating it is. I began getting paranoid and extremely hyper-attuned to everything around me, which was exhausting. Presentation anxiety is really common, but mine was so bad that I literally passed out during a class presentation because I was so anxious…that was not fun. But supportive friends, breathing techniques, more exposure to anxiety-inducing situations and therapy helped me a lot. After I accepted it, I began to be more okay noticing when it would come to ‘visit me,’ rather than trying to rid myself of it 100%. It can be pretty isolating and frustrating, but it can get way less overpowering over time!

Share an epiphany you’ve had that has shaped your current interests.

I think part of the reason I have always been interested in criminal justice reform is that growing up, I had an ‘epiphany moment’ after initially ‘digesting’ what it meant for someone to go to jail or prison. A man at my church, who I always loved seeing every week, went to jail on drug charges for a while when I was around 10-years-old. I remember telling my parents I wanted to stay in touch with him and so we became pen pals while he was gone. His letters were always funny and warm. He always encouraged me to do well in school and would ask me about my grades and what I was learning about. I tried to understand the concept of prison.  People explained it as a way to “teach people a lesson about what they did” and “keep everyone else safe.” The epiphany was that none of the stuff I was taught, in school or especially in church, pointed towards it being morally acceptable to lock people up for long periods of time in concrete, isolated cells and cut them off from loved ones and human activities.

Years later, I started learning more about the social context of incarceration and had other epiphany moments. I recalled that out of the three black men in my church, all three had been in contact with the criminal justice system. Now, I look back and can plainly see the difference between the area I lived and where they lived, and the stark contrast of how heavily policed and targeted their neighborhoods were, and how resources were systematically kept from them.

I think those early attempts to understand imprisonment when I was younger led to me eventually studying social policy abroad in Amsterdam (with a focus on drug policy), and now I am currently pursuing a Masters in Public Administration and Public Policy with a specialization in criminal justice.

Last but not least, what is your overall vision for your future?

Finish my masters degree, travel more, make more jewelry and artwork, go on an epic meditation retreat, finally get myself a DOG (a boxer) and name it Bruegger, love on my two nieces and five nephews as they get older, hopefully find an apartment closer to the ocean here in MA and continue working to do things that I love!