Deirdre M. Giblin (CAS`90) remembers sitting in Political Science Professor Christine Rossell’s public policy class as a first-year in the College of Arts & Sciences, learning about the difference between good policy and bad policy.
“It was so eye opening for me,” says Giblin, who already knew that she wanted to be a human rights attorney. “I really wanted to speak up for people who didn’t have rights. Everything I learned in that freshman class helped me become who I am today.”
Giblin met Rossell, now a professor emerita of political science, again as a junior, during the interview process for her Harold C. Case Scholarship, a prestigious BU award that recognizes scholarly accomplishments and extra-curricular contributions. She remembers Rosell challenging her to reconcile the dichotomy between the right of women in Saudi Arabia to drive and the right of a sovereign nation to govern, reminding Giblin of the “arduous but worthwhile road ahead to be a part of furthering human rights.”
Giblin went on to earn her J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School, and to spend more than two decades furthering human rights as a immigration attorney, successfully representing hundreds of immigrants and asylum seekers and advocating to preserve low-income immigrants’ access to legal representation, legal status, civil liberties, and protection against deportation. In recognition of this work, Giblin will receive a 2023 Arts & Sciences Distinguished Alumni Award during BU Alumni Weekend on September 23.
“BU was such a launch pad for me,” says Giblin, who currently works at the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute. “I can vividly remember my excitement at being accepted to BU and being awarded a financial aid package that made it possible for me to attend. I marvel at how wonderful my four years at BU were, academically and socially, so the idea that I am being honored for using my BU degree in a way that is a credit to my alma mater is amazing to me and deeply gratifying.”
Giblin, whose parents had immigrated from Ireland, decided that she wanted to be a lawyer while working on a debate project in fourth grade. As the niece of missionaries who had traveled to countries including Peru, Kenya and Japan, she learned about different cultures, as well as how basic needs and rights could be improved around the globe. She knew she wanted to be “a part of that kind of advocacy” but did not know the exact path to do so.
She came to Arts & Sciences because of her passion for the liberal arts and her desire to study with Professor Elie Weisel, who had recently received the Nobel Peace Prize — she joined the waitlist for his class as soon as she arrived on campus. She enrolled as an English major because she heard it was good preparation for law school, and found a small supportive community and amazing classes. And while she didn’t get into Weisel’s class until her senior year, she remembers how invigorated she felt as a freshman in Professor Rossell’s lectures.
“Professor Rossell’s class opened my eyes to the fact that the law is based in large part on policy decisions and those decisions are often based on political positions. It magnified to me how valuable political science was as a course of study,” she says. “To be in a large lecture hall with so many other motivated students learning from an esteemed professor was a quintessential university experience.”
But it was her work-study job in the admissions office that, Giblin says, “opened up BU” for her and introduced her to mentors who set her on her life path. There, Giblin got to know Kelly Walter, then an admissions assistant, and now associate Vice President for Enrollment & Dean of Admissions. Walter became a mentor to Giblin and later wrote her a recommendation for law school.
It was a BU admissions officer who encouraged her to study Modern British Studies at Oxford University and told her about scholarships for her senior year, encouraging her to apply for the Student Interviewer Coordinator position, which paid half of her senior tuition, and the Case Scholarship, which paid the other half.
On campus, she served as a Resident Advisor, Student Government Secretary, and chapter president of Amnesty International Chapter, which, during her junior year, hosted a regional conference with Kerry Kennedy, lawyer, author and human rights activist. For Giblin, meeting someone whose profession she hoped to emulate made the goal seem more attainable.
Giblin says studying with Professor Weisel as a senior was a highlight of her undergraduate experience. She was one of five undergraduates in a class on the literature of memory, which also included graduate students and community members, and remembers Weisel as a “serious and soft spoken, and also an engaging and humorous teacher.” Later in life, she returned to campus to hear him speak.
In addition to the Case scholarship, Giblin also received the Marshall Warren Award, presented to the graduating senior who best exemplifies the qualities of Dean of the College of Liberal Arts, Marshall Warren (1904-1937): “solidity of scholarship and breadth of intellectual interest coupled with humor and good sense, capacity for hard work, and inquiring mind and self-discipline.”
Giblin went on to the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School, where, during her first year, she applied to be a visiting scholar in Columbia Law School’s Human Rights Program. She says her time at BU admissions helped her manage the system of applying to be a visiting scholar, enabling her to pursue coursework that was not available at Penn.
After working at a big New York firm, where Giblin also did pro-bono work for the Committee for Human Rights and the ACLU, Giblin moved to Boston and focused on asylum law in the nonprofit realm. From 1998 to 2018, she worked at Community Legal Services and Counseling Center in Cambridge and the International Institute of Boston, where she helped co-found legal and mental health collaboratives funded by the UN Voluntary Fund for Victims of Torture. She was a founding member of the Trafficking Victims Outreach and Services Network, and since 2008 has been appointed as American Immigration Lawyers Association New England Pro Bono Liaison and Executive Office for Immigration Review Court liaison—working on the establishment of a national pilot Pro Bono Detention Bond project, Executive Office for Immigration Review Immigration Handbook edits, the 2017 “Team Logan” Injunction Monitoring Compliance Project for the Muslim Ban, and the 2010 Boston Haitian Earthquake TPS Clinic Initiative.
In 2018, following two decades of direct service work with clients in legal services and at a refugee resettlement agency, she joined the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute, where she focuses on systemic advocacy to address and oppose federal policy changes with harmful effects on low-income immigrant communities, particularly asylum seekers, in order to preserve access to legal representation, legal status and protections against deportation, immigration benefits and civil liberties.
“My work in the field of human rights with refugees and asylum seekers has shown me first hand that all humans innately seek safety, freedom, and equality,” she says. “I love working with clients and hearing their personal stories; sitting with them and learning about who they are and what they hope for their future is a sacred space and a serious responsibility.”
In addition to her career, from 1996 to 2000, Giblin served as board president of the Alumni Board of the College of Arts and Sciences, which organized career nights and outings to Symphony Hall and sponsored writing awards for seniors and the Distinguished Alumni Award, which she is receiving this year.
Giblin says that when she gave tours at admissions, she told prospective students that BU is a large university, but that it’s also a place where you can find your niche and make the connections that you need. Without the mentors she found at BU, her career trajectory would not have been possible.
“Studies show that it’s mentors you meet along the way who make a difference. I feel that was really instrumental to me, the people at BU who saw me and engaged with me, with what interested me, and set me on my life path,” Giblin says. “There were so many offerings at BU, and as I went down each road to what I was interested in, there was so much support given to me.”