Socio-Economic Rights Institute
Johannesburg, South Africa
Keaton Allen-Gessesse has been awarded a PSVF fellowship to join the Socio-Economic Rights Institute (SERI) in Johannesburg, South Africa. Keaton’s work with SERI will focus on three main areas: the right to adequate housing, access to basic services, and the expansion and protection of political space for dissenters. While at HLS, Keaton was a student-attorney in the Immigration and Refugee Clinic and the International Human Rights Clinic. During law school, Keaton spent a semester in Paris at Sciences Po Ecole de Droit and completed summer internships in Paris at International Federation of Human Rights and in Cambodia at the ECCC. She helped to create the student organization Students for Inclusion, and was an active member of the Royall Must Fall and Reclaim Harvard Law student movements. Keaton was an editor for the Harvard Journal of Racial and Ethnic Justice and a member of Harvard Human Rights Advocates. Prior to law school, Keaton was a Peace Corps volunteer in Peru. She received her undergraduate degree from University of Michigan in Political Science and African American Studies.