The Peer Review is part of a new series in which we shine the spotlight on the students behind the CJLPP. To view other Peer Review issues, click on the tag below.
Lauren Rodriguez is an Interview Editor at the Claremont Journal of Law and Public Policy, and a third-year student at Pomona College. She’s been a part of the Journal for five semesters!
How/why did you get involved with the CJLPP?
I applied to be a part of the CJLPP the winter of my first year because I was looking to get involved in more organizations on campus, and I thought that the CJLPP presented both a welcoming community and a valuable forum for academic writing — so it really checked all the boxes! I was also really interested in studying PPA (Public Policy Analysis) and I wanted to gain some more experience with hands-on policy writing to make sure it was the right fit for me. After finishing up my first paper, an analysis of the proposed Green New Deal, I was sure that I wanted to study PPA because I had enjoyed the research and writing process at the Journal so much.
What have you recently been working on in the Journal? Anything specific you’d like to share?
The pandemic has altered the Interview Editor role because we used to focus on interviewing people who came to speak on campus, so I’ve been working on adapting the process to center remote interviews. We have some exciting interviewees in the pipeline — I won’t reveal any names yet, but one candidate is a prominent legal scholar at UCLA known for being a conservative thinker. Incorporating viewpoint diversity across the ideological spectrum is a key goal of mine, since I believe that interviews should be published not as an endorsement of any particular view but instead as an opportunity for the reader to challenge and interrogate the opinions being stated. I’m really looking forward to this semester with the Journal!
What else has been going on in your life that you might like to share?
Last semester, I interned with a text banking start-up called Resistance Labs, which worked primarily on registering people to vote (and vote by mail) with the goal of expanding civic participation and electing candidates who represent the will of the people. Having conversations with so many people through text banking and learning its importance to the electoral process was a lot of fun and really helped broaden my political understanding. And as a bonus, it gave me ideas for people I’d like to interview in the upcoming months!
