When we open ourselves up to those around us, asking for and offering
help and support, we discover our strengths and passions we never
knew we had. We begin to reconnect with our fellow human beings,
with our wisest and most human instincts, and with the core of who
we are, which we call our soul.
—(Paul Rogat Loeb, Soul of a Citizen)
The perennial problem for the scholar and educator is how to combine
scholarly interests with classroom material. Academics have often been
castigated for living in the “ivory tower,” for being uninterested in the
real world, and for being unable to connect with their students. One would
think that this would be less so in a dynamic discipline like political
science, but like other academics, many political scientists get caught up
in covering theories without making those theories real for their
students.
Service learning has become one of the ways academics can link life in the
‘real world’ with life in the ivory tower. Numerous service-learning courses
and programs in higher education have developed since the 1990s. According
to the National Service-Learning Clearinghouse,
“Service learning
combines service objectives with learning objectives with the intent
that the activity change both the recipient and the provider of the
service. This is accomplished by combining service tasks with
structured opportunities that link the task to self-reflection,
self-discovery, and the acquisition and comprehension of values,
skills, and knowledge content” (National
Service-Learning Clearinghouse 2001).
Service-learning by definition, then, should bring the theories we examine as
academics to life outside of the classroom. When students ask “why should we
study this theory?”, academics should be able to show the relationship
between theory and the real world. Service-learning courses give students an
opportunity to become active participants in their learning experience and
engaged citizens in their community. Although important, service learning is
not mere charity or volunteer work. Service learning is not simply about
fixing the broken windows of low-income residents, baby-sitting for
single-mothers, or having students file papers for local advocacy
organizations. Service learning is not a college student's charity
contribution to the wider community. The key is in combining “service” with
“learning.” Here the academic role is essential. Service, without a
connection to theory or facts (for example, on poverty, the cause of human
rights abuses, or the structure of social service bureaucracies) simply
tends to reinforce prejudice and the gap between the students and the
“other.”1
I owe this point to an anonymous
referee.
Service learning, when done properly, weds
academic rigor with real civic engagement.
Service learning should force students out of their comfort zones culturally,
economically, and socially. It should involve hands-on experience working
with others from the community, should challenge students to revisit their
prejudices and stereotypes about the “other,” and should be able to connect
what students learn from theory with reality. I present my course, “Human
Rights/Human Wrongs” below as evidence that a service-learning course can
successfully blend academic rigor with service and can integrate a
community-based experience into the political science classroom.
Real Learning
Through a service-learning summer workshop sponsored by the National
Corporation for National and Community Service at Franklin and Marshall
College, I put together a new course called “Human Rights/Human Wrongs”
in the spring of 2002. This course was structured as a senior government
(political science) seminar that examined the literature on human rights
and had students apply that theoretical knowledge to political asylum
cases in the York County Prison, INS detention facility. Students worked
in groups of two on current political asylum cases from Haiti, Nigeria
(2 cases), Uganda (2 cases), Sierra Leone, Cameroon, Togo, and Liberia,
with the help of our non-profit community partner, CIRCLE (Coalition for
Immigrants Rights at the Community Level).
Students read several books in preparation for the asylum work, including
Soul of a Citizen (by Paul Rogat Loeb), In Our Own Best
Interest: How Defending Human Rights Benefits Us All (by
William Schulz), and Do They Hear You When You Cry? (by Fassiya
Kassinja and Layli Miller Bashir). Kassinja's book was particularly
appropriate to this course because it documented the plight of a young
woman from Togo who was fleeing female genital mutilation (FGM) and was
seeking asylum in the United States. She actually ended up in York
County Prison. Shortly after students read the book, they were given a
tour of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) detention
facility in York County Prison.
Students, working in groups of two, were assigned a current asylum case
on the first day of class. They then had to read through the intake
information provided by CIRCLE (which varied according to how much had
already been processed).2
Because we were
working with real political asylum cases, we did not have
control over what stage of development the cases were in. For
example, some students gathered evidence for appeal cases to the
Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA) while others were handed
cases that did not even have the I-589 (Application for
Withholding of Removal) filled out. All of the cases provided
students with different challenges but similar levels of time
commitment.
They would work on this asylum case
throughout the semester, culminating in an immigration court-ready
document (with evidence tables, asylum seeker affidavits) and a legal
brief (either in support of asylum or in favor of deportation).
3 Obviously, if the students wrote a legal
brief in favor of deportation based on their evidence and
critical assessment of the case, the legal brief would not be
submitted to Immigration Court in order to avoid any sort of
double jeopardy for the asylum seeker. But, it was important to
allow the students to critically assess the cases that they were
working on, and not to simply assume that all asylum seekers had
credible asylum cases.
This material would be handed
over to CIRCLE which would submit the packet to Immigration Court for
the benefit of the asylum seekers. Because the students were not law
students, they could not actually represent the asylum seekers in court,
but they were required to present their case to the rest of the class
and our community partner in a mock trial.
Students were required to read the main human rights documents and the
philosophy behind human rights. Seminars were interspersed with guest
lectures from community leaders and activists in the field. Students had
to apply the readings (like the United Nations Convention Against
Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or
Punishment, the 1951 United Nations Convention relating to
the Status of Refugees, and the United States Immigration
and Naturalization Act of 1980), to their particular asylum
seeker's situation. To aid in the technical aspect of the asylum
process, students had to read the invaluable Basic Procedural Manual
for Asylum Representation Affirmatively and in Removal/Deportation
Proceedings provided by the Midwest Immigrant and Human Rights
Center, and remain in weekly contact with CIRCLE to ensure that the
process was proceeding as smoothly as possible.
In addition, students were required to keep a daily “reflection journal”
documenting their activities as well as their perceptions, experiences,
and feelings regarding their experience with service learning and
political asylum. The reflection journal served as an opportunity for
students to reexamine what they learned in their readings and through
their real life experiences with their asylum seeker about human rights
and the asylum process in the United States. Many students were stunned
to learn that asylum seekers are actually detained in detention
facilities and local prisons in the United States. Several of their
reflection journals document that as students became more familiar with
the asylum process in the United States and became more familiar with
their asylum seeker's story they became more confident and motivated to
commit their time and effort in helping their asylum seeker.4
One student wrote, “While it is very
exciting to be doing homework that will actually be useful to
someone else's life, it is also very overwhelming thinking that
if I make a mistake the consequences could be more damaging than
just a bad grade on my part.” Another student, equally troubled
about the burden of working on asylum cases at the beginning of
class wrote: “Despite all the stress, anxiety and trouble this
class caused, I am glad I took it. I feel I am better off with
this experience, including the good and bad thereof than I would
be if I had taken a lecture class. I think that's because I was
doing something I never thought I'd do, feeling things (stress,
relief, and pride) to degrees and in ways I never thought I
would in a class, and learned more about me, my work style,
stresses, values even though I thought I already knew all those
things. They were challenged as never before and that's why the
experience, no matter how I felt I succeeded or failed, was
worth it.” This student worked on an asylum case from Cameroon
which was granted asylum.
The Process
Most of the asylum seekers we worked with were detained because they
had illegally entered the United States (without a visa, or with a
forged passport or expired visa). The detainees already had a
“credible fear interview” with an Immigration and Naturalization
Services (INS) official at the port of entry, and the decision on
asylum was deferred to an immigration judge with the Executive
Office of Immigration Review (EOIR). The asylum seekers were then
transported to an INS detention facility to await a “merits” hearing
before an immigration judge. Here, the immigration judge would hear
the detainee's story to determine if the detainee had, in fact,
suffered past persecution or if he/she had a well-founded fear of
future persecution on the basis of political opinion, religion,
nationality, race, or membership in a particular social group. Human
rights conditions within the country of origin as well as the
applicant's credibility are taken into account in this hearing.
While an INS attorney represents the U.S. government, most detainees
could not afford a lawyer (nor are they entitled to the equivalent
of a public defender). Few speak English as a second language, if at
all, and most are completely unfamiliar with U.S. Immigration
law.
My students not only interacted with their detainee and learned about
another culture first hand; they also gave a human face to the
United States outside of INS officials, prison guards, and common
criminals. More importantly, my students gave the detainees a fair
chance at political asylum. Students went to the York County Prison
to interview their asylum seekers, often through plexi-glass
windows, using prison telephones.5
Students usually have to wait two weeks before they can
visit their detainee. At YCP, students must write a letter
to their detainee identifying themselves and indicating that
they are working with CIRCLE. Detainees will then request
the students' names be placed on his/her visitor list. This
process can often take longer at times. For example, several
wings within the INS detention facility had been quarantined
for chicken pox. Students, unable to interview the asylum
seeker for his/her story, had to focus on familiarizing
themselves as much as possible on the human rights
conditions within their asylum seeker's country of
origin.
Through these interviews, they could piece
together their asylum seeker's story which would be translated onto
the INS I-589 form (application for withholding from deportation)
and the asylum seeker's affidavit.
The interviews were often painstaking processes of trying to
communicate with an asylum seeker whose native tongue was not
English, and whose culture was totally foreign to most of the
students. Once the students got all the details necessary to
communicate the asylum seeker's story, they would get to work on
finding evidence and case law to support their asylum seeker's
story. Students would search multiple documents from Amnesty
International, Human Rights Watch, the United States State
Department Reports on Human Rights conditions, and case law,
focusing specifically on their asylum seeker's story and country of
origin. Students would then properly document, tabulate, and present
this information in a court-ready legal document. So, if the asylum
seeker did not have an attorney at least this file could be
submitted as evidence in support of the asylum seeker's case.
The specifics of the cases varied. Some asylum seeker's stories were
sad or tragic, but did not meet one of the requirements for asylum
(past persecution or a well-founded fear of future persecution based
on political opinion, religion, nationality, ethnicity, race, or
membership in a social group). Students worked on asylum cases
focusing on all of the above categories.
But, what impact did this have on students? One student opined in her
reflection journal, “We're expanding our minds and hearts to be more
compassionate citizens; we're learning how to truly be better
people, not just memorizing facts and dates and how to apply
formulas. I'm learning how to live, not how to make a living. It's
refreshing.”
Another student working on a case from Sierra Leone wrote:
Your class makes students go out into the real
world to try to analyze and solve real problems. It also
shows us that what we take for granted here in America is
not universal and is missing in most of the world. When I
communicated with my asylee through the plexi-glass of the
jail, I found out how human life can be so drastically
different but essentially the same. What I mean is that even
though [asylum seeker's name withheld] has experienced more
misery and pain than I will ever know he can speak the same
language and laugh at the same things that Ryan and I
laughed at. He is just a young adult like us yearning to be
part of a society that can nurture his amazing
potential.6
This year, the
asylum seeker from Sierra Leone won asylum in the
United States. One week after he won asylum, I
invited him to our class. He forcefully made his
case about the relevance of this service-learning
course: “Without the student's help, I would not be
standing in front of you now, free, telling you my
story” (name withheld for
confidentiality).
Most telling, one student wrote,
… through service learning,
I have broadened my horizons, learned to think outside the
box, and have begun to learn how to be a better person. This
class taught me things that I could not have learned through
reading a book or listening to a lecture. It has taught me
greater compassion and greater acceptance for things and
people different from myself. It has taught me how very
lucky and fortunate I am to have been given the life and
opportunities that I have been given…. I have learned that
individuals can make a difference and that sitting idly
watching the world go by is the greatest crime against
humanity. I feel my eyes have been opened and a shield has
been lifted…. This course is what liberal education is all
about. It would be a grave injustice to the students of this
school to be denied such an extraordinary opportunity to
truly encounter this valuable and unique learning
experience.
Although the students may have felt these strong feelings during and
immediately after their service-learning experience, this alone does
not prove that this course would have lasting impact on the students
or encourage them into civic engagement; student's actions after the
class do. One student quit a lucrative computer science job to
pursue a Master's degree in human rights theory and practice at the
University of Essex. Another became Franklin and Marshall College's
post-graduate intern for service learning, a third completed an
internship with the Tahirir Justice Center in Washington, D.C., a
fourth will work on an independent study on political asylum reform
in the United States, and two others completed a summer internship
for credit with CIRCLE. Several others decided to attend law school,
with several indicating that they would further pursue human rights
or immigration law.7
Some students
became so involved in their asylum seeker's case that they
continued to visit the asylum seeker at YCP, even after the
course was over.
Students did not have to be pushed and prodded to do their work. This
is because this course had more than just the traditional course
pressures (i.e., getting a good grade, being able to answer
professor's questions, not letting down the community partner). The
students knew that if they did not put in the time to properly
research their asylum seeker's story, case law, and find evidence in
human rights reports to substantiate the claims, their asylum seeker
would most likely get deported. And, if in fact the asylum seeker
was telling the truth about his/her human rights abuse, deportation
could mean further torture, abuse, or even death. Other human
beings, from different cultures, speaking different languages,
living completely different realities were depending on my students
to make sure that their story was heard. There is no greater
motivator than that. Students learned an important lesson in civic
engagement: their commitment to their asylum seeker's case made a
difference to another human being, even if they were not granted
asylum.
Real Service
But does this success with the students mean that this course provided a
meaningful service to the community? At any one time, the U.S.
government incarcerates about 22,000 non-citizens in INS detention
facilities and jails, like York County Prison (Mallone 2001). In fact, the INS detention facility in York
County Prison is the second largest in the United States. In 2001,
60,853 asylum applications were received, 7,839 were granted, and 14,960
were denied (U.S. Department of Justice 2001).
The U.S. government spends an average of $78 a day to detain a
non-citizen. For the whole process, including the initial hearing in
front of an immigration judge, the cost is approximately $7,259 per
single asylum seeker (Walth 2001; Vera Institute of Justice 2000).
The political asylum process is a huge cost for the U.S. taxpayer, and
not a very pleasant experience for the asylum seeker. INS lawyers are
often so overworked that they are flipping through affidavits while they
rushed into immigration court. Some immigration judges have become so
jaded over the incredible cases that they often don't take the time to
read through the asylum seeker's story. Yet, these are not just stories
but someone's life experience.
Our community partner, Kathleen Lucas of CIRCLE noted,
…certainly, the research and organization that the
students brought to the asylum packets were invaluable to the
asylum seekers in their court proceedings. In the cases that
have gone to court during and since the class, the evidence was
submitted to the judge and was a strong positive factor. There
is another more subtle benefit for the asylum seekers that is
hard to measure and yet, intuitively, I know it made a huge
impact. Asylum seekers in prison usually have no visitors and
don't have the opportunity to talk about their cases. They are
hesitant to discuss them with other detainees because prison is
just not an environment that encourages self-disclosure.
Therefore, without the students' involvement, the respondent is
telling his or her story to the judge in a fairly raw format
(Lucas 2002).
My students helped win three asylum cases, five cases are either still in
process or under appeal, and one asylum seeker is in final deportation
proceedings. Contrary to the perceptions of many, the United States
deals very harshly with asylum applicants. Fewer than 20% of all asylum
applicants win their asylum cases. Only one in five cases are reversed
in front of an immigration judge (Midwest Immigrant
and Human Rights Center 2002, 4). Given these figures, my
students did quite well. Students also helped asylum seekers suffering
from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). As Lucas suggests,
Students would ask many clarifying questions, would
listen actively and show genuine interest and be supportive of
the asylum seeker. Depression and post-traumatic stress disorder
are very common among detained asylum seekers and having someone
to process the trauma with helps counteract those conditions as
well as helping the individual to present their story in a more
cohesive manner in court (Lucas
2002).
It would take time for students to build the necessary level of trust
with the asylum seeker to make them feel comfortable enough to re-tell
their story. Students were guided by our community partner and myself on
the importance of being culturally sensitive, patient, and thorough. By
the end of the semester, students would feel a very deep bond to their
asylum seeker, even if they did not think they had a strong case for
asylum. The feelings were mutual. Asylum seekers, often separated from
family members and friends and bewildered by being detained would have
little contact with the outside world. Asylum seekers would send
students letters telling them “God Bless You” for helping us, and
expressing that they were, “overwhelmed with joy to have the students
visit them and help them on their cases.”
Given the fact that most asylum seekers cannot afford legal help, the
students working with CIRCLE were in many ways the asylum seeker's last
hope of having their story documented and supported by evidence. Courses
like Human Rights/Human Wrongs may help encourage more lawyers to take
on pro bono cases and represent asylum seekers if students do
most of the groundwork through research and affidavit writing.
Putting it all Together
Convincing faculty to start a service-learning course may be difficult.
The amount of time and effort put into a service-learning course far
exceeds that put into any traditional college-level course. At the same
time, the immense satisfaction realized from teaching such a course can
never be matched by any traditional college-level course.
There are several key factors that make for a successful service-learning
experience for all. One of the most important factors is a strong
working relationship between the faculty member and the community
partner. There must be mutual respect, trust, and inclusion. Trained in
international and comparative politics, I was not an “expert” on the
asylum-seeking process in the United States. I had served as an expert
witness in asylum cases on Uganda so I had knowledge of how the system
worked, but the strengths that I brought to the course focused on the
research and theoretical aspect of human rights. I relied heavily on my
community partner, especially the first year that I taught the course,
to field students' specific asylum questions and to direct students on
case law. It was this consulting work (as an expert witness on Uganda)
that gave me the greatest personal sense of achievement and involvement
in making a real, concrete difference in people's lives. I developed the
Human Rights/Human Wrongs course in an attempt to give students the
same.
But, of course, this is not Hollywood and not everything works as
planned. One of the most frustrating things about service-learning is
that as the professor you do not always have control over what will
happen. For example, I had no control over whether York County Prison
would continue to keep INS detainees,8
York County Prison (YCP) and the Immigration and
Naturalization Services (INS) were engaged in contract
negotiations over the acceptable cost of housing INS detainees
in YCP. For the first two months of 2003, the INS pulled about
half (400) of the INS detainees out of YCP and moved them to
other detention facilities and country prisons in an attempt to
make YCP lower the daily costs (and profits) associated with
housing INS detainees.
whether there would be another
chicken pox outbreak resulting in another quarantine, or even if there
was a snow storm that would result in the cancellation of our prison
tour. The key to success is to remain flexible (and calm) and to make
sure that you have a backup. In the case of the INS-YCP dispute, our
community partner was able to provide a list of “paroled” or
“affirmative” asylum seekers with whom the students could work.
9 Students never worked with any detainees
that had criminal records. But the INS sometimes “paroles”
asylum seekers who do not present a flight risk for humanitarian
reasons. An affirmative application for asylum occurs when the
asylum seeker comes to the U.S. legally or illegally and has not
been placed in deportation/removal proceedings by the
INS.
This course helped bridge the conceptual separation between human rights
at the national and international level. Human rights abuses occurring
half way across the globe came to our backyard in York County Prison and
into my student's consciousness. As educators, it is our responsibility
to make learning real and relevant to students, even if in the interim
it is more time consuming than we could ever have imagined. However, it
does get easier and even more satisfying with time. For a
service-learning course to be effective, it has to provide a real
service to the community as well as real learning for the student. In an
age where America questions its citizen's civic engagement, this course
offers hope and a vehicle for students to become more involved and
engage in life-long learning and activism.
The true litmus test for successful service-learning is if we have been
able to fully integrate the community service into the course, involve
our community partners in the planning and teaching, and provide
countless opportunities for students to reflect on their learning and
service. In this way, students become more than mere tourists in their
learning experience; they reap the benefits of their engaged
citizenship.
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