Tulane Law Welcomes New Forrester Fellows

Tulane Law School is welcoming two new Forrester Fellows whose scholarship spans tax policy, poverty, feminist legal theory and international law.

Marilyn Hajj and Ashita Alag join Tulane as the law school’s newest Forrester Fellows, becoming part of a program that for more than two decades has helped prepare emerging legal scholars for careers in academia. 

“We are delighted to welcome these scholars to Tulane Law,” Dean Marcilynn Burke said. “Each brings distinctive scholarly interests and experiences that will enrich our intellectual community and our students’ education.”

The Forrester Fellowship is held by early-career academics and combines teaching in Tulane Law’s Legal Research and Writing program with faculty mentorship and opportunities for development. Fellows participate fully in the intellectual life of the law school. 

Ashita Alag  

Alag joins Tulane while completing a D.Phil. in law at the University of Oxford. Her research and teaching interests span feminist legal theory, criminal law, legal history and international law, with a particular focus on laws governing sexual violence and feminist responses to gender neutrality in rape law. 

Her forthcoming article in the Georgia Journal of International and Comparative Law, “The Road Not Taken: Gender-Neutrality in Rape Law and the Making of the Indian Feminist Movement,” examines the influence of Western feminist thought on debates over gender neutrality in India’s rape laws. 

Before beginning her doctoral studies, Alag earned an LL.M. from Harvard Law School and her first law degree from Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University in India. 

Alag also brings experience in international human rights advocacy and the judiciary. As a legal adviser to the Global Justice Center, she worked on gender-based violence under international law. She conducted research and advocacy and engaged with United Nations mechanisms to advance intersectional, survivor-centered approaches to sexual and gender-based violence. 

Earlier, Alag spent two years as a law clerk at the Supreme Court of India, working on constitutional and public law matters. She assisted the Court’s social justice bench on cases involving environmental law, gender equality and the protection of children, including a landmark case addressing protections for survivors of sexual assault. 

Marilyn Hajj 

Hajj’s scholarship sits at the intersection of tax law and poverty, examining how tax systems can shape economic inequality and access to government benefits. Her research interests also include tax administration, social welfare policy and comparative tax law, and her work draws on sociology, history and economics. 

Her scholarship has appeared or is forthcoming in the Columbia Journal of Tax Law, Georgetown Journal on Poverty Law & Policy and Virginia Journal of Social Policy & the Law.  "Her article Waiter, Extra Tip, No Tax was featured in the Journal of Things We Like (Lots) (Jotwell)." 

Hajj earned her Bachelor of Laws and Master 1 in Corporate Law from Saint Joseph University in Beirut and her LL.M. and S.J.D. in tax law from the University of Virginia School of Law. 

Before joining Tulane, she worked as a research assistant to several University of Virginia law professors. From 2020 to 2022, she also co-taught contract law and legal methodology at Saint Joseph University while providing academic support and career advising to law students. 

A Fulbright Scholar, AAUW International Doctoral Fellow and P.E.O. International Peace Scholar, Hajj was inducted into the University of Virginia's Raven Society in 2024, an honor society for undergraduate and post-graduate students who have shown academic distinction. 

She is a founding member of Foodblessed, a Lebanese nonprofit that works to combat hunger and food waste and serves on the board of its U.S. charitable partner, Friends of Foodblessed.