When she was 13, Sukhmani Kaur ’25 tore a lined piece of paper from her notebook and wrote “Living the dream — being a lawyer.” Beneath those six words she printed the names of 15 law schools. No. 1 on her list, and highlighted in pink, was Harvard.
That dream is coming true this May as Kaur prepares to graduate from Harvard Law School. It may seem unlikely that someone so young could predict her future profession, but Kaur’s longtime interest in the law was informed by a deep sense of justice, inspired by the experiences of her parents who survived the Sikh massacres in India in 1984, her commitment to the Sikh faith, and her own life growing up in post-apartheid South Africa.
“My influences, however complex and unsettling they can be to navigate, have given me firsthand knowledge that positions me to make unique, meaningful differences in serving post-conflict societies,” Kaur wrote in her law school essay.
During an interview, Kaur described how her father had escaped harm by chance in 1984, when he was 11 years old, because he had washed his hair and wasn’t wearing his turban when the massacre began, and how Muslim and Hindu friends and neighbors had helped hide her parents from violent mobs.
“I took from those stories an understanding that they still live with their pain because there’s been no reckoning with what happened to the Sikh community after 1984,” said Kaur. “I also realized that I wanted to figure out how to be like those people who helped my parents, how to be that person for my community and for other communities.”
She credits her mother with being “the pivotal force” behind her relationship with Sikhi. Both her mother and her “nanaji” (maternal grandfather), Kaur said, shaped her “understanding of seeing the oneness in humanity, which grounds my passion for service. Their influence is at the heart of why I do this work and see the world the way I do.”
Kaur’s eagerness to help others is further fueled by her commitment to her Sikh religion, which embraces key concepts such as seva (selfless service) and sarbat da bhala (prosperity for all humankind), and by her life in South Africa, where she watched a nation try to heal the wounds of apartheid through the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. “It was an imperfect system, and a lot of the legacies of apartheid are still very visible in South Africa,” said Kaur. “But there’s something about an injustice being addressed and victims’ voices being heard that is inherently valuable.”
At Harvard, Kaur embraced that commitment to giving back through her work with a range of law school clinics. She was particularly drawn to the Religious Freedom Clinic. With her colleagues, Kaur helped file a complaint against the acting director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, arguing that their Sikh client’s constitutional right to wear a turban in prison without harassment and to serve his time free from religious discrimination had been violated, and explaining to her colleagues how the sacred Sikh cloth is considered “an extension of the self.”
“We all agreed on the religious freedom issues that we were working on. And if you don’t enter a space because you have a perception about it, you devoid that space of your expertise and your cultural competence and all of the beautiful ways that you can add to and shape that space.”
“If you don’t enter a space because you have a perception about it, you devoid that space of your expertise and your cultural competence and all of the beautiful ways that you can add to and shape that space.”
Kaur also found community on campus with Harvard LL.M. candidates, many of whom are from Pakistan and, like Kaur, are descended from the Punjabi community that was separated along religious lines when India was partitioned by the British government in 1947.
“We talk about the partition, our community, how we can be advocates for it, and how can we be advocates for others. It’s just a beautiful, a beautiful feeling to be able to do that. We’re trying to rediscover this shared Punjabi identity that for so many generations now has been co-opted, and not allowed to surface and thrive,” said Kaur, who recently submitted an academic paper that supports cultural access under international law.
Going forward, she plans to generate other conversations with those who have kept their pain hidden. “I think it’s really important that the bitterness and trauma and stress of our grandparents’ generation is being slowly uncovered. We’re making gradual inroads with peace and love and rediscovering our shared identity and how to build cross-border bridges.”
Kaur hopes to focus on truth and reconciliation in her future work, noting that she loves reaching for a common goal. “I want to work with you to come up with a solution that’s mutually beneficial for us and that we can both see as a good next step forward. That’s why I see myself in the future either in academia or in the field of transitional justice or negotiation.”
She already has an academic paper in the works. As part of Harvard Law School Advocates for Human Rights, Kaur and her classmates conducted comparative research on bail funds. Their work was cited by a group pushing for bail reform in South Africa and was recently accepted for publication.
Next, Kaur is headed to a London firm where she will do cross-border, transactional capital markets work, and participate in the office’s pro-bono practice focusing on immigration cases.
In addition to receiving her diploma from Harvard, Kaur will be living another, more personal dream. For the first time, she and her partner, a professional cricketer from England, will be living in the same city after an eight-year, long-distance relationship.
The two met when they were 13, not long after she had planned out her career. It was love at first sight, but they only connected in earnest five years later. True to her interest in the law, Kaur was prepping a legal argument for her brother, who had been told he couldn’t compete for the South African karate team while wearing a turban. Eager to talk with other Sikhs who may have experienced religious discrimination in sports, she knew exactly whom to call.
“My father got his number from his dad for me, and I texted him and told him what I was doing and sent him the letter I was working on. It was the first time we talked after that first meeting when we were 13, and we have talked every single day since.”
Reflecting on her law school experiences over the past three years, she said: ” I’m grateful for what I’ve gained at HLS and am excited to carry it forward into the world, especially in my work on post-conflict justice, healing, and service.”
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