NYU law student wins Paul J. Gaylor Memorial Student Activist Award

FFRF is proud to announce that Mickey Desruisseaux has earned the Paul J. Gaylor Memorial Student Activist Award of $1,000.

The award is annually endowed by Annie Laurie Gaylor in honor of her father, Paul. Mickey was given the award for his defense of the views of nonbelievers. His article, “Why do we portray atheists as broken believers?” was published in the November issue of Freethought Today after originally appearing in the Washington Square News, the student newspaper of New York University.

Mickey, 25, graduated from the University of Chicago in 2015 with a degree in political science. He is now a law student at New York University and plans to graduate in 2021. He was born and raised in Chicago, and has a passion for writing, politics and the Chicago Bulls. While undecided about what type of law he will practice, he feels strongly about criminal justice reform and civil rights defense, or “maybe constitutional law as a backdoor back into the world of politics. And as I mentioned before, I have a vested interest in seeing the 45th president out of office in two years.”