S.J.D. Student Awarded AAUW Doctoral Fellowship

Marilyn Hajj, a 2025 S.J.D. prospect who scientific tests tax legislation through the lens of poverty reduction, has been awarded a 2022-23 global doctoral fellowship from the American Association of University Girls.

Hajj, a native of Lebanon, is in her 3rd calendar year of S.J.D. scientific tests at the College of Virginia School of Regulation. Considering that 1917, the AAUW has supplied support for females pursuing whole-time graduate or postdoctoral analyze in the United States who intend to return to their home region to go after a qualified career.

The fellowship, as Hajj explained it, provides her a “lifeline” and rewards her lifelong commitment to strengthening women’s lives.

“Whatever the debate — political, educational or spiritual — I constantly problem the sexist status quo that desires us to shut up and take it,” she mentioned.

Hajj specializes in U.S. tax law, and her current research focuses on taxation and poverty relief, which she explained has obtained renewed great importance with the COVID-19 pandemic. Her interdisciplinary, comparative approach is influenced by her possess working experience with hyperinflation — working a few jobs to receive the equal of $150 for every thirty day period — and studying French law, she said. (As a former French mandate, Lebanon has a legal process greatly motivated by French legislation and the Napoleonic Code.)

“While my function is about tax, it is also seriously affected by economics, sociology, philosophy and historical past,” she claimed. “Aside from my thesis, I am doing work on publishing a paper regarding the complexity of tax legislation and what can make it so inaccessible to laymen.”

Hajj is a Fulbright scholar who attained her LL.M. from UVA Law in 2020. She has labored as a investigate assistant for Professors Ashley Deeks, Andrew Hayashi and Ruth Mason.

“I have been blessed to meet individuals from all corners of the world,” Hajj reported of her time at UVA. “It has been an unparalleled expertise to understand about their cultures and authorized backgrounds and to train them about my component of the earth. The cultural contrast was even additional interesting in a classroom setting since it led to me having some enjoyable debates with classmates and professors in my tax classes.”

An S.J.D. degree offers a single path to getting a law professor or educational, both in the U.S. or abroad. Apart from her doctoral operate, Hajj served as a Civil Legislation instructor from 2020-22 for first-12 months learners at Université Saint Joseph de Beyrouth, where she acquired her bachelor’s in French and Lebanese legislation and her master’s in company legislation. She taught along with Lebanon’s previous minister of justice and has been the youngest legislation instructor at the college and one particular of the youngest in the nation. The fellowship has due to the fact funded her return to her research in Charlottesville.

Becoming a law professor is not only about pushing young grown ups to dilemma their surroundings, she said, but helping pupils create a local community to make improvements to their law school working experience.

“It is my dream to carry on investigating, composing and educating,” she reported, “and to be able to make a career out of it would be surreal.”