Chief Justice Robin Jean Davis and Justice Thomas E. McHugh spent time with Afghan student Hume Manati in January to discuss the American judicial system.
Ms. Manati visited the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia on January 4 and 5 as part of a weeklong visit in West Virginia.
Ms. Manati is a student in The Initiative to Educate Afghan Women program, which allows Afghan women to earn degrees in higher education.
The 20-year-old, from Kabul, Afghanistan, is a junior at Sweet Briar College in Sweet Briar, Virginia. She is pursuing her bachelor’s degree in interdisciplinary education with a focus on law.
A Sweet Briar alumnus who also was a part of the IEAW program made Manati’s education in the United States possible. The program was founded by Paula Nirschel and began in 2002. There are forty-two women enrolled in the 2009-2010 academic year, studying at nineteen universities and colleges. The women are dispersed across the United States and are supported by college, university, and personal scholarships and funds.
The program is meant as a means for Afghan women to earn degrees in higher education and to continue in masters programs. The women must agree to return to Afghanistan in the summers between semesters and permanently after they graduate to help rebuild their country.
After first visiting the United States in 2004 as a part of a high school exchange program, Ms. Manati found the American education system to be “privileged” in comparison to the education system in Afghanistan.
"The education system in my home country is very different and needs much updating,” Ms. Manati said. “It’s so sad. Often our books are so far behind, we miss out on all new advances in the world simply because our books are not up-to-date.”
Ms. Manati said she plans to also attend law school in the United States after she earns her bachelor’s degree.
Ms. Manati told Chief Justice Davis that the thing that astonished her most when she came to the United States was the availability of legal rights. “Here a woman can ask for her rights, and even if you cannot afford an attorney you can be provided one. That is what I most respect about the American judicial system, the equality.”
Justice McHugh asked Ms. Manati what she would most remember of her stay in the United States, to which she responded, “My degree will be the biggest thing I take home with me. I do not know where I will end up working, but I do know I will have a law degree.”
Supreme Court Administrative Director Steve Canterbury and Supreme Court Clerk Rory Perry also met with Ms. Manati as she toured the Supreme Court Chamber. While in Charleston, Ms. Manati shadowed lawyers at Bailey & Glasser. Later, she visited Washington, D.C., where she listened to a U.S. Supreme Court hearing and met with various political figures.
“The experience was definitely a learning process for me,” said Ms. Manati. “Meeting these legal professionals has been very helpful to my decision to carry on into the legal profession.”
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