A law graduate's hippie upbringing gave way to her civil rights advocacy

Early childhood memories for Alexi Velez include living unconventionally in a purple school bus, above a metaphysical bookstore and in a migrant farmworker camp.
Photo: Courtesy of Alexi Velez

"I felt ignorant on this area of the law (ethnic profiling) and limited by academia and its audience. Personally, it was important to connect with and advocate for my Roma identity. – Alexi Velez

What a long, strange trip it’s been for Alexi Velez into law school.

The soon-to-be attorney, who leaves Rutgers Law-Camden with a slew of accomplishments, including serving as president of the Association of Public Interest Law (APIL), a Marshall Brennan Fellow, staff editor for The Rutgers Journal of Law and Religion, and treasurer of the National Lawyers Guild – and with an impressive New Jersey appellate division clerkship lined up after graduation – began her life journey following the Grateful Dead with her family.

Early childhood memories for Velez include living unconventionally in a purple school bus, above a metaphysical bookstore and in a migrant farmworker camp at a time when her father was fixing tractors as an odd job. Snapshots show her as an infant donning a colorful cap in a playpen at a Rainbow Gathering, a temporary intentional community of hippies living on public land.

At a young age, her father left Velez, her mother and infant brother. They were living in Michigan then, far away from the support of family and friends, so they initially struggled to recover. Through the help of extended family and the assistance of public benefits, Velez recounts her mother’s ability to overcome great adversity. At age 10, her mother remarried; Velez’s stepfather, named Bill, embraced Velez and her brother as his own. From living on the road to the quiet suburban home she shared with her mother, brother and Bill, it was a long strange trip, indeed.

Velez, a first-generation college student, is about to graduate with a third academic degree – she  says her unique origin ultimately led her to earn a J.D.

Velez is pictured here in rainbow bonnet at a Rainbow Gathering.

A descendent of Roma heritage, Velez has long been intrigued with her ancestry, even compelling her to write the thesis for her master’s in anthropology from Florida Atlantic University on the Roma people’s plight around the world and in the U.S. This research on the Roma diaspora developed into Velez’s interest in law enforcement’s history of profiling the “gypsy” population.

But what she wasn’t learning about Roma people in graduate school, Velez was experiencing in part in real life. Her father, Roma himself, had his own run-ins with the law. While her father’s Roma background has intrigued her intellectually, Velez credits her mother and step-father for ultimately providing the needed stability for her educational success.

“I felt ignorant on this area of the law [ethnic profiling] and limited by academia and its audience. Personally, it was important to connect with and advocate for my Roma identity,” she says of her decision to enroll in law school.

As a law student, Velez quickly identified with public interest-minded students, faculty and programs. She found Rutgers-Camden to be a perfect fit for her desire to connect the disenfranchised with access to justice by taking part in programs like the Street Law Pro Bono Project and the yearlong Marshall-Brennan Constitutional Literacy Project seminar, which engages talented law students to teach local schoolchildren about the Constitution. The Rutgers Law-Camden student’s leadership and academic excellence was even honored by the New Jersey Women Lawyers Association.

Velez’s childhood situation allowed her to be a more sympathetic ambassador when interacting with Camden youth experiencing the tough realities of poverty.“Anybody can be in that situation at any time. Relying on public benefits doesn’t have to be permanent, you can overcome poverty,” Velez observes. “Not having a savings account doesn’t mean college isn’t an option.”

Velez's mom, pregnant with Alexi, stands in front of a first family home.

According to Jill Friedman, adjunct professor and associate dean of the pro bono and public interest program at Rutgers Law-Camden and Rutgers Law-Newark, Velez is one of the strongest students she’s ever had.

“She is exactly what we mean when we talk about the best and brightest,” says Friedman.  “I have had the pleasure of working with Alexi in her capacity as an officer – now president – of our public interest student group in Camden, and as her professor in a yearlong course. Her sophistication, diplomacy, intelligence and grace are matched only by her fiery, purposeful work to speak truth to power, her dedication to international human rights and her belief in the power of education to overcome disadvantage.”

After her clerkship, a coveted one with the Honorable Judge George S. Leone of the Superior Court of New Jersey, Appellate Division, Velez has ambitions to advocate for another disenfranchised population, the LGBT community. She has also written a paper on the criminalization of Roma ethnicity that she is seeking to publish.

“The mission statement of APIL, providing access to justice and civil rights lawyering in general, is why I came to law school,” notes Velez, who credits several faculty members for supporting her throughout her legal education. “If it weren’t for Rutgers Law School I don’t know that I would feel as nurtured and ready and supported. I just feel super, super lucky.”

Click here to read about other outstanding members of the Class of 2015


For media inquiries, contact Cathy Donovan at catkarm@camden.rutgers.edu