§2465 John Lewis Civil Rights Fellowship Program

Summary

Creates the John Lewis Civil Rights Fellowship Program inside the J. William Fulbright Educational Exchange Program. The program honors Representative John Lewis and promotes learning, research, and international exchange about nonviolent civil rights movements to support U.S. foreign policy. The Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs must run the program under the Board’s policy rules and in consultation with binational Fulbright Commissions and U.S. Embassies. Each year the Board will pick qualified fellows. The Bureau sets how many, and whenever possible there should be at least 25 fellows. The Bureau must reach out to schools that serve minority students, including historically Black colleges and universities (as defined in title 20, section 1061) and other minority-serving institutions (as defined in title 20, section 1067q(a)). The Bureau will hold an annual orientation in Washington, D.C., or another place, with programming to honor John Lewis. Fellows must arrange an approved internship or research placement with an organization in a country that has a working Fulbright U.S. Student Program and have a Bureau-approved work plan. Fellows must attend the orientation, and within 1 year after their fellowship ends attend a Bureau summit, give a presentation, and the fellowship should last as determined by the Bureau, preferably at least 10 months. The Bureau must give each fellow an allowance for living costs and for travel and lodging to the orientation and summit. Starting within 1 year after the first group finishes, and yearly after that, the Secretary of State must report to the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and the House Committee on Foreign Affairs on the program’s demographics, placements and projects, feedback and lessons learned, plans to use those lessons, and trends in cohort diversity and project topics.