He writes:

I spoke with several combat veterans who said that they identified with Platner’s struggles. Others felt he was using P.T.S.D. as a political crutch, perpetuating the stigma that all veterans are damaged and dangerous. One of Platner’s most vocal critics, Jake Auchincloss, a Massachusetts congressman and a former captain in the Marine Corps—he’s now a reservist officer—went on CNN before Maine’s primary and said that Platner’s tattoo was “personally disqualifying,” adding, “I hope Maine voters agree with me.” They didn’t: on June 9th, Platner won the primary with seventy-two per cent of the vote.

Shortly after his primary victory, Platner told me he believed that Maine voters understood his struggles. He cited the deepening divide, in America, between communities that fight wars and those that have the privilege of viewing armed conflict “in this real vague, sort of romanticized way.” Within this divide, he enjoyed a geographic advantage: Maine has one of the highest per-capita concentrations of veterans in the country. “One of the things that the political class in this country forgets is that a lot of Americans actually deal with the repercussions of war quite directly,” Platner told me. “People in places of power, people that live in the rarefied air, they don’t have, like, a cousin that went and got fucked up in Fallujah. They don’t have a neighbor who’s a woman veteran who suffers from military sexual assault.”

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The fellowship itself is named for Robert Masur, a 1973 graduate of Stanford Law School, who dedicated his legal career to protecting the rights of vulnerable people. Masur spent six years at the Legal Assistance Foundation of Chicago, where he litigated a number of employment and consumer law cases. In 1976, he successfully argued an employment discrimination case before the Supreme Court. He entered private practice in 1981, where he focused on consumer protection law. In 1985, his friends and family established the Robert Masur Fellowship in his memory to support the work to which he was dedicated and to encourage young people to pursue public-interest legal careers.

Chase Breaux is a rising second-year law student at The George Washington University Law School. This summer, he will serve as a legal intern with the Harris County Public Defender’s Office, where he will work alongside attorneys to represent individuals who cannot afford private counsel. Through his experience and legal education, Breaux has developed a strong commitment to using the law as a tool to challenge systemic racism and address structural inequalities. He is particularly focused on advancing institutional change while directly serving communities most impacted by injustice. Prior to law school, Breaux graduated magna cum laude from Wabash College and as a Point Foundation Flagship Scholar, Gilman Scholar, and inaugural Obama Foundation Voyager for his commitment to public service advocating for marginalized communities. Breaux is committed to a future in which equal protection under the law is not merely an ideal, but a lived reality. Following graduation, he plans to pursue a career in civil rights litigation or public defense, safeguarding the civil liberties of marginalized individuals.

Hannah Ponce is a rising 2L at UCLA Law, where she is specializing in the Public Interest Law and Policy program. After graduating from Brown University in 2022, Hannah worked as a paralegal at the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights Los Angeles (CHIRLA), providing free legal services to Southern California’s low-income migrant communities. This summer, she will intern with the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), where she will engage in ongoing litigation and policy advocacy work aimed at advancing Latino civil rights across the realms of education, employment, immigration, and access to justice. After law school, she plans to continue her immigrants’ rights advocacy through a career in impact litigation, focused on addressing the inequities in the immigration legal system.

About Type Media Center 

Type Media Center is a non-profit home for independent journalists and truth-tellers at all stages of their careers. Our mission is to produce high-impact journalism and literary nonfiction that addresses injustice and inequality, catalyzes change, informs and uplifts social movements, while transforming and diversifying the fields of journalism and publishing.

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