| UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA
JAMES E. ROGERS COLLEGE OF LAW |
AUGUST 5, 2026 | | | |
Greetings,
This week’s newsletter is grounded in community.
First, we feature a recent decision by the Arizona Department of Education in a case brought by the Education Advocacy Clinic on behalf of a group of students under federal special education law. Like many other clinics at Arizona Law, the Education Advocacy Clinic gives our students a crucial opportunity to help members of our local community while honing legal skills.
Next, you’ll meet two recent graduates: Fredrick Ole Ikayo (SJD) and Tessa Hanson-Vargas (JD). Both are deeply connected to their communities of origin, in Tanzania and Tucson, and plan to use their degrees to pursue the good of those communities.
| | Education Advocacy Clinic Scores “Huge Win” for Families in Federal Disability Matter | | |
The Arizona Department of Education (ADE) has found the Arizona State School for the Deaf and the Blind (ASBD) violated federal special education law, following a complaint filed by Arizona Law’s Education Advocacy Clinic.
Earlier this year, ASDB announced that it would be closing its Tucson campus and relocating to a new site in Oro Valley. Families soon learned that not all students would be able to transfer to the new campus, as the new location will serve primarily deaf and hard-of-hearing students. Students at ASDB who were blind, visually impaired or in the residential program were told they would be sent back to their home districts, the same districts that referred them to ASDB because they could not meet the students’ educational needs.
Under the Individuals with Disability Education Act (IDEA), a student’s educational placement must be based on the student’s individual needs. “This was not happening for the children who were blind, visually impaired or part of the residential program at ASDB. Before the student’s team even held a meeting, the outcome was a foregone conclusion,” says Director of the Education Advocacy Clinic Diana Newmark.
The clinic began working with affected ASDB families in January, filing a complaint with ADE in May. ADE’s investigation confirmed the violation, finding that ASDB predetermined student placements rather than making individualized decisions grounded in each child’s needs.
“This is a huge win for families at ASDB, and our hope is that the corrective action spurs real change to serve this population of students both now and moving forward,” says Professor Newmark.
To learn more, see the full story here.
| | Class of 2026: SJD Grad Fredrick Ole Ikayo’s Personal Mission for Indigenous Land Rights | | |
Fredrick Ole Ikayo left his home in Longido, Tanzania to do something his Maasai community urgently needed — learn the law well enough to change it.
“As a member of the Maasai Indigenous community of Tanzania, my intellectual commitments are inseparable from lived realities — land dispossession, contested conservation regimes and the persistent marginalization of Indigenous legal systems,” says Ikayo, who this spring earned the highest degree offered in the field of law, the Doctor of Juridical Science (SJD).
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His forthcoming article, “Carbon Markets and the Dispossession of Indigenous Peoples in Tanzania” (Vermont Journal of Environmental Law), looks at this problem. But his research doesn’t just identify problems but looks for solutions.
In another project, “Bridging Law and Culture: Contractual Pathways to Indigenous Self-Determined Development in Tanzania,” he explores how contract law could be used as a tool for Indigenous self-determination.
During his time at Arizona Law, Ikayo was a Teaching Fellow in Contracts, Torts and Property Law, helping law students understand the foundations of law. He also worked as a Clinical Legal Fellow in the Environmental Justice Clinic and served as a Protected Areas Fellow, contributing to legal reports examining Tanzania’s obligations to its Indigenous communities.
Following the completion of his SJD, Ikayo intends to pursue a career in academia and high-level policy engagement. He hopes to educate the next generation of lawyers and policymakers and contribute to legal reform processes at both national and international levels.
See the full story to learn more about Fredrick’s scholarship.
| | Class of 2026: JD Grad Tessa Hanson-Vargas on Her Journey from GED to JD | | |
As a paralegal, although her skillset advanced and her understanding of the law deepened, she found herself unsatisfied with the limits of what her role allowed her to do. So, she went further.
The first-generation college graduate earned her JD this spring and hopes to set a new standard for her children and generations to come.
“I wanted higher education to become a norm in my family rather than something uncommon and unattainable,” she says. “We deserve to be here as much as anyone else despite our hardships in previous generations.”
After graduation, Hanson-Vargas plans to practice criminal law in the Tucson community and Tucson’s tribal communities.
Beyond her plans for practice, Hanson-Vargas is clear that the meaning of this degree extends far beyond her career.
“This degree is an attestation to what I can accomplish regardless of the obstacles. It has given my children an inspiration I could never give them in words,” she says.
See here for the full story.
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Do You Have News?
Your success is the college’s success and we want to celebrate with you! If you have landed a new job, received an award or recognition, stepped into a leadership role or have good news in general, let us know.
| | | Taken together, these stories reflect the many ways Arizona Law’s community creates positive change—through advocacy, scholarship and service. They remind us of what is possible when legal education is paired with a commitment to improving the lives of others. | | | | |
