MSU Law Students Return for "Know Your Rights Day" 2022 at Detroit High School

For the second year in a row, MSU College of Law partnered with Cass Technical High School in Detroit to engage high school students in conversations about race, policing, and a young person’s Fourth Amendment rights when dealing with law enforcement.

The “Know Your Rights Day” workshop was hosted virtually on March 25, 2022, and it reached roughly 1,000 students at Cass Tech, an immense uptick in volume from the previous year. Those in attendance included both returning students and first-timers, whose teachers welcomed the law student volunteers after the success of the first workshop in 2021.

Maya Pascal and Megan Shaya, both 3Ls, have been the lead organizers of the workshop since its inception, and more than 20 law students volunteered to support the workshop this year.

“The central theme or purpose of ‘Know Your Rights Day’ has always been two-fold. On one hand, we wanted to get these high school students excited about the law and allow them to think about themselves as future lawyers. Second, and most importantly, we wanted the students to feel emboldened with knowledge,” Pascal said. “It is so important to us that the students walked out of each workshop feeling confident in their rights guaranteed by the Fourth and Fifth Amendments."

“While the two of us have a vision and have this as our passion project, if we don’t have the law students volunteering to teach the classes, this just doesn’t work,” Shaya explained. “Seeing the MSU student body step up in that way and support this initiative was very exciting and rewarding for us.”

The MSU Law students who volunteered included: Payton Anderson, Nikolas Spilson, Jennifer Anton, Richard Harris, Erin Shrum, Andres Kenny, Jordan Cade, Ronald Ilgan, Olivia Sorg, Maleigha Jackson, Emily Rosberg, Eysia Avila-Reyes, Matthew Seafield, Trevor Knapp, Gina Goldfaden, Brittany Macaddino, Taylor Hall, Kim Talent, Lucas Adams, Joshua Cambri, and Jamie VandenOever.

VandenOever, ’22, stressed the importance of an event like “Know Your Rights Day” and the impact it has on the students it reaches. “Often the world can get separated into ‘adult’ topics versus ‘kid-friendly’ topics. The topics that we teach with ‘Know Your Rights Day’ often fall into that first category, which creates a huge responsibility on these kids to educate themselves,” VandenOever explained. “I know that they are learning this material from the insightful questions they ask each year, but you can never underestimate how important it is to let students know their safety and rights matter now – not just when they turn 18.” 

‘Know Your Rights Day’ has always been an investment in the students we get to teach. We want them to become more educated on their rights, and feel as supported as they can moving forward, to be able to better advocate for themselves and others the moment the workshop is over.

Being the second installment of this event at Cass Tech, the organizers and volunteers worked to modify and update the workshop, but much of it remained the same at its core.

“It’s really valuable information for the kids who are seeing it for the first time, and then it’s a really good reinforcement for kids who are seeing the workshop for the second time,” Shaya said. “One of the things that Maya and I were really passionate about emphasizing this year was telling the law students that they had the autonomy to teach the class in their own style. So even students that saw the class last year probably had different law students teaching it this year and so they interacted with the material and the subject in a different way.”

Anderson, ’22, volunteered for the workshop first in 2021 and returned for its second installment, inspired to continue sharing the message and showcasing the power of a legal education to students in the next generation.

"When I came to MSU, I always had the goal to speak to local high school students. I not only wanted to educate them about the law, but I wanted to get young Black men thinking about a career in law. Law school did not always seem like an achievable goal when I was growing up. So, to get the chance at ‘Know Your Rights Day’ to educate the next generation about their Fourth Amendment rights was unreal,” Anderson said. “The students this year were engaged and eager to learn. They stretched my legal knowledge that's for sure. However, I believe we made some future lawyers. This has been one of the best experiences in my law school career."

As Shaya and Pascal prepare to graduate this spring, they’re happy with the legacy they’re leaving behind as rising Spartan lawyers, and they’re hopeful for the workshop’s continuation with the College of Law.

“We definitely want it to continue. I think no matter what time period or era, knowing your rights is something that is invaluable,” Pascal said. “Knowledge is one of the most valuable things you can have.”

“This has really been the most fulfilling and exciting thing that I have participated in while at MSU Law. It has been so rewarding to interact with a completely different generation and teach, and hopefully inspire in any small way,” Shaya said. “It’s good to know that we were able to use our knowledge that we’re learning in the classroom and take that information and share it. Because this is a privilege – attending law school is a privilege, sitting in these classes and learning this information and being able to go through this rigorous curriculum is a privilege – not everybody gets to attend law school.”