After serving 23 years in jail and being launched earlier this 12 months, Adnan Syed has been employed by Georgetown College. Syed started work as a program affiliate for the varsity's Prisons and Justice Initiative (PJI), which provides academic applications and coaching for incarcerated people.
Syed was convicted of the 1999 killing of his ex-girlfriend, Hae Min Lee, which turned a excessive profile case years later when it was coated on the "Serial" podcast. Syed maintained his innocence and was exonerated this 12 months when Baltimore State's Legal professional Marilyn Mosby introduced all costs introduced in opposition to him have been to be dropped, saying new assessments revealed a "DNA combination of a number of contributors" on Lee's sneakers and that Syed's DNA was excluded.
Syed, now 41, started his new position at Georgetown on Dec. 12, the varsity introduced this week. In his position he'll assist the PJI program, which features a Making an Exoneree class, that has college students reinvestigate wrongful convictions. The scholars work to carry harmless folks house from jail and create brief documentaries about circumstances.
PJI additionally consists of the Jail Students Program, which brings greater training alternatives to folks incarcerated in D.C. and Maryland – one thing Syed was part of throughout his last 12 months in jail. Syed stated he noticed a flier for this system on a bulletin board in jail and could not imagine it was actual.
His group of buddies inspired each other to use.
"It turned this domino impact to see us be accepted," Syed stated. "It made it turn out to be one thing actual within the eyes of others, that there are alternatives. There could be a sense of hope: a way of hope that issues can get higher, a way of hope that I can work exhausting and nonetheless obtain one thing, a way of hope that I can nonetheless do one thing that my household shall be happy with."
"For the primary time in 23 years, we did not really feel like we have been in jail. We felt like we have been faculty college students studying," he stated. Syed took philosophy, statistics and life writing programs and discovered use a laptop computer.
PJI additionally provides the Pivot Program, wherein previously incarcerated people can earn a certificates in enterprise, in addition to the MORCA-Georgetown Paralegal Program, which prepares returning residents for careers in regulation.
Syed stated he hopes to proceed his training at Georgetown and finally go to regulation faculty.
"To go from jail to being a Georgetown scholar after which to really be on campus on a pathway to work for Georgetown on the Prisons and Justice Initiative, it is a full circle second," Syed stated in a press release. "PJI modified my life. It modified my household's life. Hopefully I can have the identical sort of affect on others."
Syed's launch from jail in September was met with media fanfare. As he walked out – free for the primary time in additional than 20 years – and photographers swarmed him, he held a binder with a Georgetown bulldog sticker. Inside was graded papers and assessments, together with his last examination for statistics, which he scored a 98 on.