It was a sunny yet windy Tuesday afternoon on April 20. While many students walked outside to enjoy the beautiful weather, two girls and a staff member were busily trying to get people's attention behind a table with flyers outside the Shapiro Campus Center. "Hey guys, can you spare a minute to write a letter to the Massachusetts State Governor Deval Patrick? We're trying to convince him to pass the in-state tuition bill to allow undocumented students in the state to receive in-state college tuition." Meet Vanessa Kerr '11 and Morgan Manley '11, two students in the newly created Legal Studies course, "Advocacy for Policy Change," taught by Prof. Melissa Stimell (LGLS). According to the course catalogue, the class is the "centerpiece of a new initiative launched by the Ethics Center designed to encourage citizens to bring moral and ethical insights to the process of making and revising laws." The class, which is an experiential learning course, allows the students to work in small teams to research specific laws and design and implement an advocacy project to address the range of issues surrounding those laws.

Kerr and Manley are working to expand student immigrant rights and have set up events in order to advocate for the in-state tuition bill.

Other students' projects address issues including cyberbullying, the Metropolitan Council for Educational Oppurtunity funding for a busing program that would allow inner-city students to attend public schools in suburban communities, a new tax proposal on soda and candy and Criminal Offender Record Information Reform legislation for rehabilitated individuals. Kerr and Rebecca Wilkof '10, a student who has been working on the cyberbullying legislation, have each received $1,000 in funds to continue their research after the semester ends.

Students in the class investigate the "ethical dilemmas that arise in the process of lawmaking with hands-on advocacy work with entities seeking to reform laws perceived as unjust or to propose new ones that redress social wrongs," says Stimell.

According to Stimell, the students first discussed possible topics that they were interested in researching. Then, they narrowed the search to choose an existing law that they think is potentially immoral and proposed a policy change to rectify this at the state legislative level.

Speakers from several fields came to the class to not only provide insight into lawmaking and policy change but also to deepen the understanding of how two contrasting viewpoints can affect a law. For instance, Massachusetts State Representative Jay Kaufman '68, MA '73 of Lexington came to the class and talked to students about how work gets done in the State House while providing insider insights into the legislative process. He also met individually with students and discussed their group projects to make sure their goals were realistic and practical.

Stimell encouraged students to take initiative and talk to state legislators and coalition groups to learn about practical methods of implementing change. Some examples of this hands-on learning include writing a script for the elevator speech and preparing a script for an in-depth meeting with House Ways and Means legislative staff. Kerr and Manley immediately knew that they were interested in fighting for illegal immigrants' rights. After conducting further research and collaborating with their professor and other guest speakers, they felt strongly about the issue and decided to stand up for the undocumented students in Massachusetts.

Currently, Massachusetts students without permanent residency status are denied equal access to in-state tuition for universities and are forced to pay out-of-state tuition, which is substantially higher. The students are fighting to reverse this by advocating for the in-state tuition bill, which would allow any resident who has lived in Massachusetts for at least three years who has graduated from a Massachusetts high school and (if not an officially documented resident) who vows to pursue documentation as soon as he or she is able, to pay in-state tuition rates at the Commonwealth's public colleges and universities.

The girls have personally discussed the matter with Senator Sonia Chang-Diaz and joined a coalition group, Student Immigrant Movement, which according to a sheet given out at the April 20 event, is a "statewide immigrant youth-led organization."

"We as college students agree that everyone deserves to receive college education," says Manley. "But even though these students pay taxes like documented residents, have good moral character (no criminal record), are talented and hardworking, and meet other guidelines to possibly gain permanent residency in the future, they are denied equal access to in-state tuition rates at public universities and colleges, paying out-of-state rate that is three to five times the former."

According to Manley, these students have lived in Massachusetts for most of their lives and are unfortunate victims of their parents' immigration status. Overwhelmed by the cost, most students take between five to 10 years to graduate because they cannot afford to be full-time students. Most have to get a job to pay off the tuition. Worse, what they earn from these jobs is not sufficient for them to take more than one or two classes at a time.

To most people's surprise, the Massachusetts Taxpayer Foundation actually supports this bill because it would generate about $2.5 million revenue due to increased number of full in-state cost tuition payers. This relatively small yet controversial bill only affects 400 to 600 students in the state, compared to the 65,000 undocumented students who graduate from high school each year in the United States.

"I am amazed that I am making a difference by legislative means that can directly change 400 to 600 students' future . because if this bill does go through, their lives will be completely transformed. So knowing that, I feel like I can truly make a difference in the world," says Manley.