2025 Fall Fellow

Camryn Cooper

Camryn Cooper is a student at the Center for Advanced Studies and Research at Thousand Oaks High School and Moorpark College, where she will earn her Associate’s Degree in Law, Public Policy, and Society this December. Driven by a passion for civic engagement and equitable governance, she has served as a Bank of America Student Leader, interned with Habitat for Humanity, and currently acts as a Student Liaison and Docent at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library as the first student representative on a NARA committee. Her policy experience includes interning for Assemblymember Jacqui Irwin, where she drafted constituent correspondence, conducted policy research, and engaged community stakeholders. As a multi-year delegate, statewide chair, bill sponsor, and current Youth and Government President, Camryn has collaborated with state officials to advance youth-led legislation, earning awards for her legislative presentations. She also founded the Moorpark Career Closet, a free professional clothing hub for students and young professionals, and was named the 2024 Courtney Brousseau Outstanding Jurist while representing California at the National Judicial Competition.

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From Nixon’s War on Drugs to Trump’s Deportations: How Racialized Criminality and Supreme Court Sanctioned Profiling is Shaping America

Capstone Project

This policy brief traces how racially coded “law and order” rhetoric evolved into institutionalized racial control within U.S. criminal justice and immigration enforcement, beginning with Nixon’s War on Drugs. It shows how political dog whistles reframed civil rights claims as criminal threats, laying the groundwork for mass incarceration and later extending to immigration through the 2025 Noem v. Vasquez Perdomo ruling, which authorized racially motivated ICE enforcement. The brief argues that Trump-era deportations and family separations are not anomalies but the continuation of a long-standing political strategy that weaponizes race. It concludes that dismantling racialized criminality is a moral and democratic imperative central to restoring constitutional equality.

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