Student’s Essay Wins ABA Competition
Second-year law student Zaylore Stout does not want anyone to let their Lawyering Skills grades to get them down. If he would have let his grades in those classes get him down he might not be on his way to Washington D.C. to meet Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as the winner of the American Bar Association’s International Law Student Writing Competition.
His essay, about President Obama’s obligation to the Iraqi National Museum Antiquities was partly inspired by his course work in the Rome study abroad program.
The course “Art & Cultural Heritage Law” focused on international conflicts about true and actual owners of art and cultural heritage – and the effect the travesty of war has on cultural heritage.
Stout started thinking about the effects of the war in Iraq on the country’s cultural heritage and was inspired to write a paper on the topic in Professor Delahunty’s International Law course.
“I thought about how rich historical cultural heritage items were stolen and looted from the Iraqi National Museum,” Stout said. “It can be hard for a culture to move forward when they have no reference to their cultural past. So I decided to write this essay in hopes that this issue will not be forgotten when our troops finally leave and Iraq is able to rebuild its cultural richness again.”
Professor Delahunty urged him to try and get the article published so Stout entered a pared-down version of the paper into the competition. A short time later, the ABA contacted Stout to tell him he was the winner of the competition and will be honored in Washington D.C. and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will be present.
Stout wants his fellow students to follow his lead by taking a risk and submitting articles and essays to writing competitions or get them published.
“The more we, the students, strike out and win awards like this one the more valuable our degrees will be when we are out job hunting and the interviewer sees that we attend, or graduated from, the University of St. Thomas School of Law.”
