Emerging scholars continue to thrive in Boston College Law School’s Drinan Scholars Program, which provides them with research, writing, and teaching experience in preparation for law school careers, particularly those whose work engages deeply with issues of race and the law.
Established in 2019 in honor of former BC Law dean and Congressman Robert Drinan, SJ, the program funds one visiting professor each year for a two-year term, creating an overlap ensuring that two Drinan Visiting Professors are at the Law School every year. The current participants are Rebecca Horwitz-Willis, who is in the second year of her 2024–2026 appointment, and Akshat Agarwal, who is in the first year of his 2025–2027 appointment.
Horwitz-Willis studies the law and history of urban education in the United States, using education as a lens to examine how constitutional rights are contested and shaped locally. Her current project explores the history of Black education in the pre-Brown North to develop a new understanding of power and education localism. At BC Law, she teaches courses on education rights, family law, and law and inequality.
Before joining BC Law, Horwitz-Willis was a postdoctoral fellow with the Black Teacher Archive project and worked as both an educator in the Bay Area and an attorney in Austin, Texas. Her scholarship has appeared or is forthcoming in the Lewis and Clark Law Review, Georgetown Journal of Poverty Law and Policy, and the Harvard Educational Review. She is a recipient of the Kathryn T. Preyer Award from the American Society of Legal History for her paper, “Educating a Class of Unfortunates: Crime Control, Child Protection, and the Development of Compulsory Schooling, 1888 – 1903.”
Agarwal, who is completing his JSD at Yale Law School, researches family law and comparative law with a focus on how legal concepts of parenthood, children’s interests, and family regulation respond to changing social and political contexts. His current project reframes how law defines children’s interests in light of the rise of non-traditional families.
Agarwal previously worked at a legal policy think tank in New Delhi and practiced at a leading Indian law firm. He has written widely on family law, LGBTQ+ rights in India, the regulation of paid domestic work, and end-of-life care. His scholarship has appeared or is forthcoming in journals including the Case Western Reserve Law Review, Yale Journal of Law and Feminism, International Journal of Constitutional Law, and the Indian Law Review. His work has been recognized with the Colin Picker Graduate Prize from the American Society of Comparative Law.
Together, Horwitz-Willis and Agarwal exemplify the mission of the Drinan Scholars Program: to expand the scope of scholarship at BC Law, bring fresh perspectives into faculty dialogue, and prepare the next generation of legal academics.
Horowitz-Willis notes, “Being at BC Law has enabled me to grow in immeasurable ways. The faculty has been incredibly generous with their time and support, and the rigorous feedback I’ve received on multiple rounds of my work has deepened my scholarship. I’ve also built a number of strong relationships with colleagues, and feel a strong sense of community at the school. Additionally, working with students has been an absolute joy. Their desire to learn and deeply engage with course topics has been inspiring, and has pushed me to grow as an educator.”
Echoing similar sentiment, Agarwal remarks, “It’s been a privilege to join BC Law as a Drinan Visiting Assistant Professor this year. I have been struck by the warmth of the intellectual community and the openness to different ideas. It’s given me the opportunity to interact with BC Law’s extremely thoughtful student body which has truly been the highlight of my first few weeks here.”