USC LAW FAMILY: SCHOOL OF JUSTICE
Allied in the
Fight for Equality Gould alumni reflect on highpoints, challenges and opportunities as OUTLaw scholarship reaches a milestone By Christina Schweighofer
In 2012, OUTLaw students at USC Gould made history when they created a fund to endow the first student-run scholarship on campus. Designed to benefit LGBTQ+ students and students working towards LGBTQ+ equality through the law, the scholarship immediately drew support from law school alumni and the larger community; OUTLaw students along with Gould’s Development and Alumni Relations team have so far raised more than $200,000 for the endowment. Fifty years after the Stonewall Riots launched the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement, with much to celebrate given the progress made but with the understanding that more work lies ahead, USC Gould alumni reflect on milestones, challenges and their support for OUTLaw.
CHANGE FROM THE INSIDE OUT SETH LEVY (JD 2001) When Seth Levy JD ’01 first heard about plans for an endowed OUTLaw scholarship, he knew he would support the project. Aside from benefitting individual students who face disadvantages and often lack parental support, it carried an innate long-term promise: to ensure, in his words, “a pipeline of lawyers who are going to change the profession from the inside out.” But there was another reason Levy decided to back the student-run initiative. A partner at Nixon Peabody and current chairman and CEO of the It Gets Better
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Project, he remembers USC as a welcoming place for LGBTQ+ people from day one. “It was a comfortable, supportive environment,” he says. More than a decade after his graduation, the creation of the OUTLaw scholarship provided Levy with a “relevant opportunity to give back” and to promote USC as a center for LGBTQ+ support. Already instrumental in setting up the scholarship, Levy more recently made a pledge — it is the largest individual gift to date — that pushed the fund to the $200,000 mark. Levy lauded USC Gould for its support of the student-run endeavor. “Students are only there for three years, and the consistency of the scholarship is only possible because it is institutionalized at the law school,” he says.
SENDING A MESSAGE JOHN HEILMAN (JD 1982, MPA 2007, MRED 2009) John Heilman JD ’82, MPA ’07, MRED ’09 knows from personal experience what a difference a scholarship can make. Coming from a single-parent home and lacking resources of his own, he worked during law school but still considered dropping out because of the financial pressure. In the end, a scholarship from the Irmas family — longtime supporters of USC and USC Gould — allowed him to complete his studies.
