NORAN ELZARKA

Noran is a second-year student at The City University of New York School of Law. She is interested in criminal defense, immigration defense, and working with CUNY’s CLEAR Project to counter post-9/11 policies and practices that have particularly affected Muslim, Arab, South Asian, and other communities in NYC. She is active in the International Refugee Assistance Project at CUNY Law and the National Lawyers Guild’s Parole Preparation Project, collaborating with and advocating for people eligible for parole who are serving indeterminate sentences in NY State prisons. She also serves as a dean for the Sadie Nash Leadership Project, where she helps build spaces of sisterhood and social justice for young women of color.

In 2015, she received her B.A. In Political Science and Women’s studies from Drew University, where she proudly served as the co-founder and president of its Students for Justice in Palestine chapter. Her honors thesis examined the intersections between the prison-industrial complex and the military-industrial complex and the ways in which two racialized wars, the “War on Drugs” and the “War on Terror”, exacerbate one another and the implications of militarization for Black, Brown, and Muslim communities.

Noran currently interns at Brooklyn Defender Services, working with non-citizens in removal proceedings who are at risk of deportation.

Below, Noran shares her thoughts about winning the scholarship:

Receiving a scholarship from MuBANY has been extremely rewarding as a law student. I have received not only financial support but a community that I am looking to personally and professionally grow alongside and I am so grateful for that. I have been able to connect with law students and attorneys across New York City and learn from their experiences and their work. MuBANY has been instrumental in my development as a hopeful attorney and has helped me feel a sense of community.