The Critical Race Studies program at the UCLA School of Law received a $1 million gift in April to fund a fellowship across eight to nine years for four to five students pursuing careers in Latinx legal academia.

The Laura E. Gómez Teaching Fellowship on Latinx People and the Law – gifted by Chair of the UCLA Foundation Board of Directors Alicia Miñana de Lovelace in honor of Gómez, a retiring professor – is the largest gift in the program’s history.

Miñana de Lovelace, who announced the donation in March at an event commemorating Gómez’s tenure, previously served as chair of the UCLA Law Board of Advisors and is currently co-chair of the UCLA Second Century Council.

Gómez co-founded and served as the first co-director of the School of Law’s Critical Race Studies program in 2000, and she has been a groundbreaking scholar in the field of Latinx people and the law, said LaToya Baldwin Clark, a professor at the School of Law.

“We are in Los Angeles, (a city) that has an overwhelming Latinx population,” Baldwin Clark said. “We felt it was really important for our law school to have a stake in helping folks who are trying to get into legal academia and study this particular population.”

The gift will fund the fellowship for eight to nine years, said Jasleen Kohli, the director of the Critical Race Studies Program. Fellows will be compensated for their research and teaching, Kohli added.

Fellows will also teach a seminar at the School of Law on how electoral, immigration and criminal law impact Latinx people, according to a press release from UCLA. Teaching about the relationship between the Latinx community and the law is important amid UCLA’s progress toward becoming a Hispanic Serving Institution – meaning its student population consists of 25% Hispanic students, Gómez said in the press release.

[Related: UCLA announces new efforts to be designated as a Hispanic-Serving Institution]

While teaching, fellows will also be mentored by Critical Race Studies professors, Kohli said. The mentorship program will provide a much-needed pipeline to connect Latinx students with the legal field by giving them further insight into the field, she added.

Kohli also said that the Critical Race Studies program at the School of Law is one of the nation’s only academic programs dedicated to teaching about race and the law, making its faculty mentorship opportunities unique.

“We have a lot of really great faculty who could provide mentorship for the next generation of legal scholars,” she said. “That’s what we seek to do.”

Some articles written by the fellows will be published in law reviews, further strengthening their experiences, Kohli said.

“This is a really important thinking field where we want to nurture young scholars and build the field,” said Ariela Gross, a distinguished professor at the School of Law.

The first fellow is expected to be selected this summer, marking the beginning of their journey, Baldwin Clark said.

While the UCLA School of Law has offered fellowships prior to Lovelace’s gift, her donation marks the first time there has been funding focused on Latinx law and designated for multiple fellows over a series of years, Kohli added.

“It’s a really amazing pipeline for individuals who are interested in doing work on race and the law where they can get training and mentorship and also have the time and space to produce scholarship,” she said.