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Meet the 21-year-old Rhodes Scholar fighting for the wrongfully incarcerated
Jenna Smith has already made a mark in communities locally and in the Deep South. She's worked with inmates in the Mississippi Delta and interned with the Innocence Project on policy issues. Adding to her accomplishments: She's a Rhodes Scholar attending Oxford University in the fall.
The 21-year-old New Jersey native and queer activist graduated from Duke University in May. There, she helped lead the Duke Justice Project, a justice advocacy student group. Smith also co-taught a course at Duke on correctional systems and the reentry process. She has been recognized as a Point Foundation Scholar, awarded to high-achieving LGBTQ+ college students.
Of a generation whose worldview was formed as President Donald Trump first rose to power, Smith says early on she witnessed reminders that minority communities face perpetual systemic threats.
'My entire political consciousness took place and now is still taking place in the Trump era,' she says.
It's affected how she navigates, understands, and embraces her politics and identities.
'All identities are political, particularly those more heavily subject to marginalization. … So my queerness informs my political identity,' Smith says. 'So does my Blackness, so does being a woman, so does having Tourette syndrome.'
As her interest in politics grew, she sought inspiration in the writings of James Baldwin and others in the tradition of 1960s civil rights leaders, she says. Eventually, she began work in restorative justice leading to her interning with the Innocence Project, a nonprofit that is dedicated to exonerating wrongfully convicted people.
She found further inspiration in some of the most conservative parts of the country while working in Mississippi, which expanded her desire to extend fairness's reach within America's prisons.
'Spending time in the Deep South awakened me politically and personally,' she says. 'When I am in blue-leaning cities surrounded by red areas, and Durham fits into that, you see restorative justice, but primarily in the blue areas.'
'There are many parts of the Delta that haven't received the same amount of resources when it comes to having access to these restorative justice opportunities. And I think there needs to be a lot more investment in that space.'
Through activism, whether with the Innocence Project, freeing the wrongly accused, or as a restorative justice facilitator, Smith is dedicated to bringing opportunities to those lost in the system to help them reclaim their lives.
Smith now heads to Oxford to pursue a master's degree in criminology and criminal justice, and then will pursue a master's of public policy at the Blavatnik School of Government at Oxford. She plans ultimately to earn a law degree.
This article is part of 's July/Aug 2025 issue, on newsstands now. — or download the issue through Apple News, Zinio, Nook, or PressReader.
This article originally appeared on Advocate: Meet the 21-year-old Rhodes Scholar fighting for the wrongfully incarcerated
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