Darielle Kennedy ’22 Enters Public Affairs Arena with Coro Fellowship

Law and justice scholar Darielle Kennedy ’22 has landed her first post-graduate position in public affairs through the highly selective Coro Fellowship program. 

As a member of the 2022-23 cohort in New York City, Kennedy will engage in public affairs work with the goal of amplifying and embedding the issue of mass incarceration into public discourse.

“I applied to other fellowships that declined to endorse a candidate who wanted to take on this issue because it is too controversial for their organization, even though they assert in their mission statements that they aim to create social change. However, the Coro Fellowship embraced me and my collective and personal struggle with the criminal legal system and my passion to abolish it,” says Kennedy, a comparative American studies major with a concentration in identity and diversity, as well as a minor in law and society. 

A native of the south side of Chicago, Kennedy enrolled at Oberlin as a Posse Scholar. At Oberlin, she has chosen courses with a particular focus on how law is enacted in ways that disenfranchise Black and brown people. 

The Coro Fellows Program develops emerging leaders to work and lead across different sectors by equipping them with knowledge, skills, and networks to accelerate positive change. Using the city as a classroom, Coro Fellows learn through interactions with private, public, and nonprofit decision-makers and work as a group to develop critical thinking, analytical, governance, and leadership skills.

Kennedy says her coursework and leadership in Oberlin Student Senate has prepared her for her career journey. 

“My experience as president of the Student Senate has helped to cultivate my public service skills. I served as a liaison between senior administration and the student body, and helped create platforms and workshops that aimed to help embrace, uplift, and protect equity, diversity, and inclusion on campus.”

In addition to serving as student senate president, Kennedy is a former racial equity liaison on student senate. She also served as a peer listener in the Peer Support Center.