Speaking to his classmates, Sanders said, “I hope that we use our outstanding education, extraordinary access and Ivy League credentials to bring the promise of Brown v. Board of Education to all Americans… I hope we realize soon that we are the hope of the future.”

Not far removed from law school herself, Julie A. Su, litigation director of the Asian Pacific American Legal Center, recounted another, more recent effort to ensure justice. She represented 72 garment workers from Thailand who were forced to work behind barbed wire and under armed guard in a two-story apartment outside Los Angeles. To make matters worse, when law enforcement officials discovered the workers, they put them in federal prison, Su said.

Outraged, Su said she and a small group of activists talked to the media and put pressure on elected officials to not only win the workers’ freedom but over $4 million in settlements from the clothing manufacturers and retailers for whom they had worked.

“I learned then that thinking like a lawyer means not letting the imperfections in our legal system demoralize us or undermine our will to fight for its higher ideals,” said Su, who received an honorary fellowship from
Penn Law.

“Each of you … will have access, you will speak the language of power in our society,” she continued. “Use it to hold doors open for others and to help them be heard.” Just as Louis H. Pollak did fifty years ago.