The University of Pittsburgh School of Law is pleased to announce Nisha Krishnan (JD '22) and Cassandra Maas (JD '22) have been awarded prestigious Peggy Browning Fund Scholarships. Peggy Browning Fellows are distinguished students who have not only excelled in law school but who have also demonstrated their commitment to workers’ rights through their previous educational, work, volunteer, and personal experiences.
Nisha Krishnan will be a Peggy Browning Fellow at Justice at Work in Pittsburgh, PA. As a daughter of hard-working immigrants, and as a first-generation law student, Nisha has always been passionate about serving underrepresented communities. She chose to go into law to address the various ways that minority status can intersect to create disparate outcomes for people of color. As an undergraduate student, Nisha was a psychology major and criminal justice minor. Both disciplines taught her about systemic inequality in society and institutions, which affect people in family, marriage, employment, and the carceral state. In law school, Nisha took an employment discrimination course that impassioned her to the issues that employees face. She is currently a member of the University of Pittsburgh Law Review and is writing a note on how employer dress codes affect nonbinary employees. Nisha hopes to one day be a plaintiff-side employment lawyer and help employees with discrimination claims in the workplace.
Cassandra Maas’ Peggy Browning Fellowship will be at AFL-CIO in Washington, DC. Cassandra grew up in a union family, so many of her family members belonged to or currently belong to locals associated with different international unions. Her pride in her family members’ hard work and her wish to provide justice for all workers, combined with her experience researching labor unions as an undergraduate, motivated Cassandra to attend law school. During her 1L summer, Cassandra’s passion for helping others was deepened through her experience with Community Justice Project in Pittsburgh. Her interest in labor law was cemented during her 2L year when she worked with the United Steelworkers at the union’s headquarters. Cassandra aspires to become a labor lawyer and work for a union, to provide justice for all workers.
The Peggy Browning Fund is a not-for-profit organization established in memory of Margaret A. Browning, a prominent union-side attorney who was a member of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) from 1994 until 1997. Peggy Browning Fellowships provide law students with unique, diverse and challenging work experiences fighting for social and economic justice. These experiences encourage and inspire students to pursue careers in public interest labor law.