Crystal Stonewall, a UW–Madison School of Education alumna and current UW–Madison law student, has been honored by the State Bar of Wisconsin as a 2021 Outstanding Public Interest Law Student of the Year.
Stonewall earned her bachelor’s degree in elementary education from the School of Education’s Department of Curriculum and Instruction in 2019.
Explains a story on the State Bar of Wisconsin website, at just 23 years old Stonewall already has an impressive CV including numerous examples of her commitment to be a “change agent, an interpreter of the law, an advocate of legal rights, a representative of the ‘invisible,’ and a voice for the voiceless.”
The story adds:
Crystal’s passion for serving others was cultivated at a young age, long before she enrolled in law school. Raised on the Southside of Chicago, Crystal shared in an October 2020 interview with the Wisconsin Alumni Association, “As a Black young woman from Chicago, I’ve witnessed poverty, food deserts, and lack of political representation.” Thus, even as a busy law student and a member of the University of Wisconsin’s prestigious Law Review, Crystal maintains close ties to her hometown, devoting countless volunteer hours to Chicago public schools, the Chicago Public Library, and her alma mater, Chicago International Charter School. She does so because of her strong belief that “it’s important for kids to see someone who came from the same place as them.”
In addition to advocating for the youth of Chicago, Crystal has advocated for her classmates as a Co-Executive Director for the Black Law Student Association at UW, and as a member of the University of Wisconsin Student Advisory Board for both the Dean of Students Office and the School of Education. She’s also pushed for systemic change in higher education through her collaborative work in 2020 with the University of Wisconsin Systems’ General Counsel on “Pass the Harasser” sexual misconduct policies and legislation.
Read more about Stonewall, and learn about her demonstrated “passion for serving under-represented individuals.”