Paying it Forward for LGBTQIA+ Students
A new gift from Eric Stine (’97) and his husband is inspired by school’s longstanding commitment to diversity.
Eric Stine (’97) and Neil Markman make cupcakes with their children.
Paying it Forward for LGBTQIA+ Students
A new gift from Eric Stine (’97) and his husband is inspired by school’s longstanding commitment to diversity.
Eric Stine (LAW’97) and Julian Burlando-Salazar (Questrom’20, LAW’23) have a lot in common: Both are the sons of teachers, both are inspired by their grandparents, and both identify as LGBTQIA+. They have another connection as well: Burlando-Salazar is the first recipient of the Eric & Neil Stine-Markman Scholarship at BU Law, funded by Stine and his husband.
“I’m a big believer in paying it forward,” says Stine, whose grandparents helped fund his education. He chose BU for its practical emphasis and richly diverse faculty. “BU Law was one of the few places, really, I really saw law professors of color and gay and lesbian law professors,” Stine says. “The school’s commitment to diversity was clear even 25 years ago.”
Burlando-Salazar, who may pursue a career in litigation and appellate law, mentors first-year students in OutLaw, BU Law’s LGBTQIA+ student group. He’s a staff editor of the Boston University Law Review, the treasurer of the Public Interest Law Society, the co-vice president of the Latin American Law Students Association, and a student attorney in the Access to Justice Clinic. The Sacramento, California, native—who is also a lawyering fellow, helping first-year students improve their legal writing—will be the first lawyer in a family of teachers and healthcare professionals.
Working with a group of attorneys who are incredibly smart and talented, and being able to learn from them, built a very strong foundation for the kind of lawyer I want to be.
While earning his bachelor’s degree at BU’s Questrom School of Business, he was mentored by lawyers as an undergraduate fellow at Greater Boston Legal Services. “Working with a group of attorneys who are incredibly smart and talented, and being able to learn from them, built a very strong foundation for the kind of lawyer I want to be,” he says. “I want to continue developing those skills.”
Stine says he and Markman want to ensure that LGBTQIA+ students have the financial support they need to attend law school. “Very often we still, unfortunately, live in a world where LGBTQIA+ youth don’t necessarily receive the same reception from their families that we were fortunate enough to,” he says. “And often that comes at the cost of the type of education that might otherwise be available to them.”
“We felt that in some small way, by endowing the scholarship and directing it the way we did, we would make that opportunity available to an LGBTQIA+ student.”
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