Noelia Rivera-Calderón
Right to Education Fellow and Staff Attorney, Opportunity to Learn
Right to Education Fellow and Staff Attorney, Opportunity to Learn
Noelia Rivera-Calderón (she/they) is the Right to Education Fellow & Staff Attorney on the Opportunity to Learn team. Noelia’s career has focused on ensuring that all oppressed students can access an abundant, liberatory education.
Noelia began as a middle school social studies teacher before attending Temple University Beasley School of Law, where they currently serve as an adjunct professor. At Temple, she served as Program Director of the School Discipline Advocacy Service, an organization through which law students serve as advocates for students facing school disciplinary proceedings. Following law school, Noelia was the Pride Law Fund Fellow at National Women’s Law Center, where she published the report “We Are Not Invisible: Latina Girls, Mental Health, and Philadelphia Schools.” This report inspired policy change efforts at the local, state, and federal levels. Noelia also published an LGBTQ advocacy curriculum co-written with student leaders called “Brick by Brick,” which has been taught in three cities nationwide. Following this work, Noelia clerked for the Honorable Nitza I. Quiñones Alejandro, District Judge for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
Noelia is also the author of “Arrested at the Schoolhouse Gate: Criminal School Disturbance Laws and Children’s Rights in Schools,” published in the National Lawyers Guild Review, as well as multiple op-eds published in outlets including The Hill, Remezcla, and Refinery29. In 2020, Noelia was named a Temple University Alumni Association 30 Under 30.