Student Advocacy

Uncomfortable Truths, Real-World Lawyering

For Ivana Wijedasa (’26), her legal education has meant grappling with injustice—and gaining the hands-on experience to challenge it.

Wijedasa also had a deeply personal reason for studying law. Her mother, a native of Sri Lanka, lost her legal status after she and Wijedasa’s father divorced. She could no longer work legally, and she spent years living in fear of deportation. That experience made a deep impression on Wijedasa, who was 11 at the time and felt helpless. “I wanted to study the law because I didn’t actually like the law,” she says. “I wanted to change the law. There needs to be a way to account for populations whose voices are often not heard or incorporated into our legal system.”

Wijedasa will be advocating with marginalized populations after graduation. She will be joining the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of New Jersey as a legal fellow focusing on civil rights and immigrants’ rights. She plans to follow that year-long role with a clerkship and then pursue a career in juvenile defense or immigration.

During law school, she prioritized opportunities for the hands-on training she knew she would need as a civil rights attorney. In fact, BU Law’s guarantee of at least one clinical opportunity to any student who desires one was a major draw for Wijedasa. At BU Law, Wijedasa had the opportunity to participate in two different law clinics, the yearlong, 12-credit Immigrants’ Rights and Human Trafficking Program and the semester-long and six-credit Racial Justice & Movement Lawyering Clinic, and she even enrolled in a practicum, the Prison Education Practicum. To put it simply, Wijedasa far exceeded the six-credit experiential requirement from the American Bar Association (ABA) Section on Legal Education and Admission to the Bar. Wijedasa says, “I know I definitely went far beyond what was required, but that was why I came to law school—not just to learn abstract theories, but to learn how to be a lawyer who’s working towards creating a different sort of legal system. I wanted to dedicate myself and my time to experiences that would help me cultivate that. First-year law classes are largely theoretical, but in our clinical and experiential programs, we are engaging with people who are most directly impacted by the law. It makes the law more real and more concrete.” 

The law became very real and concrete in her second year when she and her clinic partner, Fumi Noda, represented a woman seeking asylum. Wijedasa’s work in the Immigrants’ Rights and Human Trafficking Program included preparing the asylum application and representing the woman in immigration court. The opposing counsel was a Department of Homeland Security attorney, who cross-examined her client. The students’ work paid off: The judge granted the asylum application.

“If I had been just reading about asylum law, I don’t think I would have understood it in the same way as actually practicing law and working on an asylum application,” Wijedasa says. “I really loved that opportunity.”

Professor Sarah Sherman-Stokes, associate director of the Immigrants’ Rights Program, describes Wijedasa as “phenomenal. She has been a student and community leader, clinic superstar, and real organizer and builder at the law school. I’ve taught her in three classes now, and she has added depth and rich conversation in each one.”

Wijedasa gained additional hands-on experience last summer interning with the ACLU’s New York Chapter, where she worked on a case involving Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil. A few months ago, she added a major personal victory to her legal career: She assisted her mother with her citizenship paperwork, and they celebrated her naturalization.

Wijedasa hasn’t slowed down. On campus, she is an Equity Fellow in the BU Law Student Affairs Office, where she advises student affinity organizations and assists with diversity and inclusion programming. Last fall, she joined a panel with Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Campbell, who discussed issues ranging from immigration and transgender rights to the role of an attorney general. 

Off campus, as part of the Prison Education Practicum, Wijedasa travels weekly to Nashua Street Jail to teach people who are incarcerated about criminal procedure and legal writing. She also somehow squeezed in training runs for the Boston Marathon. The Boston-based Youth Advocacy Foundation, which represents young people who cannot afford counsel, sponsored her effort. Thanks to the support of friends, family, and many members of New Jersey’s Sri Lankan community, she raised $15,000 for the nonprofit.

Wijedasa is eager to deploy the education she has received in classrooms and clinics, and she is grateful for her dedicated classmates. “What gives me hope, and what has given me hope, is seeing people at BU Law who have been so committed to making this school a more inclusive space and who have changed this law school through activism,” she says. “It gives me hope that my peers will continue that work in their legal careers. There are a lot of people who are going to be fighting for a more just legal system—and a more just world overall.”