University of Richmond Graduate Named Marshall-Motley Scholar
Student Scholars
UNIVERSITY OF RICHMOND — Ryan Doherty, a 2025 University of Richmond graduate, has been named a Marshall-Motley Scholar. Doherty was selected by the Legal Defense and Educational Fund as part of the fifth and final cohort of this program, named in honor of civil rights icons Thurgood Marshall and Constance Baker Motley.
Scholars selected for the program receive:
- A full law school scholarship covering tuition, housing, and living expenses.
- Summer internships and a two-year postgraduate fellowship with civil rights organizations based in the South.
- Access to specialized training led by LDF and the National Academy of Sciences.
Doherty, an Oliver Hill Scholar and Richmond Scholar from Charlottesville, Virginia, will attend Yale Law School starting this fall. He double majored in history and Africana studies and minored in creative writing. In his time at Richmond, Doherty served as vice president of UR’s chapter of the NAACP and a humanities fellow. He focused much of his undergraduate studies on historical research and community programming.
“One of my proudest undergraduate accomplishments was successfully advocating for the Virginia Department of Historic Resources to create a historical marker for an otherwise unrecognized freedmen camp buried beneath a Confederate Museum at Chimborazo Park in Richmond,” Doherty said. “This scholarship will make it so much easier for me to become the advocate I aspire to become.”
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