Andrew Longhi is a Government and Sociology double major at Dartmouth College who interned at The Equity Project during Winter 2013. The Equity Project works to make the juvenile justice system more fair and equitable for LGBT youth through local partnerships and a national curriculum for juvenile justice professionals. Longhi assisted with developing nondiscrimination policies, presenting on LGBT issues, and advocating for legislation. He learned that effective policy work requires navigating relationships between partner organizations.

1. Andrew Longhi grew up in Atlanta, GA and is a Government and
Sociology double major, intent on exploring the intersection of
law and public policy. In Summer 2012 he served as the
President of Student Assembly, working on restructuring first
year advising with the Dean's office and compiling student
opinion for the Dartmouth Presidential Search Committee. He
serves as an executive editor of the Dartmouth Law Journal and
works on the Diversity and Community Affairs Committee of
Student Assembly as chair. Andrew was a Rockefeller Center
First Year Fellow and completed the Management and
Leadership Development Program with Distinction. He has completed internships at the Charles
Group, a small government relations firm in Washington, DC, and the United States Senate
Committee on the Judiciary.
Andrew was funded by the Rockefeller Center for a Winter 2013 Internship, with generous
support from the Class of 1981 Public Affairs Internship Fund.
Executive Summary from Andrew’s final report:
The Equity Project is an initiative that seeks to make the juvenile justice system more fair and
equitable for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) youth. The project is currently
engaged in site-based work in Santa Clara, California and Louisiana. The project examines
obstacles to fair treatment by partnering with local stakeholders to identify areas of need and
develop and implement local strategies with an eye towards replicating the work in other sites.
The project is also developing a national curriculum to ensure that juvenile justice stakeholders
and professionals (e.g. judges, defenders, prosecutors, probation officers, detention center
staff, policymakers, etc.) are competent in issues of sexual
orientation, gender identity, and gender expression
(SOGI/E) and understand the needs and experiences of
LGBT youth at each stage of the delinquency process. The
national team is also working on the Digital Stories project,
an initiative to capture the powerful tales of both the
successes and failures of the juvenile justice system. The
director holds TA (technical assistance) sessions for
[CLASS OF 1981 PUBLIC AFFAIRS INTERNSHIP FUND
PUBLIC POLICY INTERN PROFILE]
“Thank you to the Rockefeller
Center and the Class of 1981 -
This internship was nothing
but the perfect experience to
delve more into this often
overlooked issue.”

2. interested parties around the country and seeks to build partnerships among organizations.
Apart from finishing my long-term projects, I intend to keep learning about nondiscrimination
policies for juvenile justice facilities, especially conditions of confinement for transgender
youth, and apply them to my work in Vermont in the spring. I also plan on working with the
National Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Coalition on including LGBT affirming
language in the reauthorization of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act. The
Equity Project will presenting on LGBT issues at the April meeting and then the coalition will
help identify opportunities in the bill where requirements of funding streams can be modified
to include LGBT programs and practices based on the Equity Project’s Hidden Injustice report. I
will be meeting with the Senate Judiciary Committee staff on behalf of the Coalition’s Act4JJ
project to advocate for the reauthorization of JJDPA and talk about the impact of the sequester
on OJJDP funding streams and capability.
I appreciated learning more about the inner workings of the nonprofit world. It requires not just
detail-oriented goals to be able to effectively move policy, but also navigating often-difficult
relationships with partner organizations. For example, on the NJJDPC, many of the coalition
members could not sign onto action-oriented letters or policy recommendations due to their
diverse constituencies. This gridlock led to many partnerships among organizations within the
coalition.
Andrew Longhi ’14 in a staff meeting with The Equity Project Director
Christina Gilbert during his Winter 2013 Internship at The National Juvenile
Defender Center.
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