Education Advocacy Project
Maronel Barajas, Director
Maronel Barajas is the Director of the Disability Rights Legal Center’s Education Advocacy Project. As the Director she is responsible for overseeing all aspects of the Education Advocacy Project, including supervising four staff attorneys, recruiting, training, and supervising volunteers, law clerks, identifying and working on impact litigation opportunities, outreach and engaging in public policy work and coordinating with other projects at the Disability Rights Legal Center and community organizations. She is also a certified mediator and an adjunct professor at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, California where she teaches a Special Education Law class. She brings over ten years experience in the area of education.
Ms. Barajas graduated magna cum laude and with departmental honors from the University of California, Irvine (UCI) and is a proud member of Phi Beta Kappa and the Golden Key National Honor Society. She double majored in Criminology Law & Society and Sociology. As an undergraduate student, she helped start and later become a program coordinator for the Saturday Math Academy that was geared at increasing the math and science scores of low-income minority youth. She also volunteered her time at the Save Our Youth (S.O.Y.) program that helped at-risk students complete their education. She also served as a resident advisor at summer programs for low-income youth geared towards preparing them to attend a four year university. In addition, she authored two research papers where she explored the impact of gang violence in low-income communities and the effects of race and socioeconomic status on college admissions rates for Latino and African American students. She was selected to present her research on the effects of race and socioeconomic status on college admissions at the National Minority Symposium in Phoenix, Arizona. Ms. Barajas later attended and graduated from Columbia University School of Law in 2003. While in law school, she was the recipient of a Human Rights Fellowship in 2001 and worked with the Juvenile Justice Program at Public Counsel in Los Angeles. She was also a member of the Columbia Human Rights Law Review and the Columbia Journal of Gender and the Law. She co-authored a chapter of the Jailhouse Manual on the rights of immigrants in criminal proceedings.
Ms. Barajas has worked in several public interest areas including, housing, labor unions disputes, workers compensation benefits, and education. Ms. Barajas was an advocate as part of Columbia’s Tenants Rights Project, which helps protect the rights of tenants in public housing. Unemployment Action Committee, which helps protect the rights of persons entitled to workers compensation. She also served as the mentor coordinator for the Latin American Law Students Association and was a “coach” for the Harlem Mock Trial Program, which helps at-risk students prepare and participate in a mock trial.