Raphael Avraham, a University of Arizona graduate student, has been selected to participate in a fellowship designed to inform future professionals about contemporary ethical issues. 

The Fellowships at Auschwitz for the Study of Professional Ethics, or FASPE, named Avraham to a group of 14 law students that will participate in the two-week long program.

Avraham is a third-year JD/MBA student pursuing degrees in the UA James E. Rogers College of Law and Eller College of Management and also serves as the senior articles editor for the Arizona Law Review. 

"The Holocaust is the foremost example of unethical, yet legal behavior in recent history, and as a future legal and business professional, I hope to learn from the ethical failures of the 1930s and 1940s and apply those lessons in my community today," Avraham said.

The fellowship is one of four FASPE programs, all of which involve 13 to 15 students, informing them about the contemporary ethical issues their professions face, but through the study of Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. 

Additionally, the fellowship is designed to promote awareness of contemporary issues, including genocide, racism, anti-Semitism and xenophobia.

FASPE notes that it "aims to provide tomorrow's professional leaders with opportunities to increase their awareness and preparedness for the ethical issues they will confront in their future careers."

This year's program will be led by Eric Muller, the Dan K. Moore Distinguished Professor in Jurisprudence and Ethics at the University of North Carolina School of Law, and Brett Dignam, a Columbia Law School clinical professor of law. 

Avraham and the other FASPE Law Fellows will begin orientation May 20 at the Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust in New York City. The group then will travel with a set of FASPE Journalism Fellows, also visiting Germany and Poland.

Over the course of the program, the students will study historical and cultural sites. They also will participate in educational workshops at locations such as the House of the Wannsee Conference, the site where representatives of State and Nazi Party agencies convened in 1942 to discuss and coordinate plans.