As a 10-year-old with the dream of serving on the nation’s highest court, Edna Etienne-Dupie ’25 caught the attention of some high-profile Massachusetts lawmakers. She delivered a speech at a campaign event for former Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, and was soon invited to speak at Walsh’s inauguration.
“I mainly talked about the importance of voting and spoke about how I wanted to be a United States Supreme Court justice,” Edna said. “I have no idea if that’s my career plan now, but I’ll think about it. The clerk of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC), Maura Doyle, was watching, and after I spoke, she invited me to intern there for two weeks. It was absolutely incredible. I loved it.”
And so Edna’s public-service career began—before she started middle school. Today, as a high school senior, she is a member of a state advisory board aiming to help some of the most at-risk young people in Massachusetts.
During her time at the SJC, she met and later interned with Judge Marjorie Tynes, who was then serving on the state’s Juvenile Justice Advisory Committee (JJAC). This past summer, at Tynes’ recommendation, Governor Maura Healey appointed Edna to the JJAC.
Edna’s early interest in politics and public service stems from her family’s activism and involvement in local politics. “I’ve grown up around politics my entire life, so I know that other students my age may have a different experience, but I do think that within my generation, there’s a lot of interest in politics and activism,” she said. “I think it’s wonderful that people my age are trying to educate themselves and form their own opinions.”
Edna’s experience at Milton, in and out of the classroom, has deepened both her interest and her understanding. As a junior at Milton, she took the History of Civil Rights elective taught by Matthew Blanton, which provided an “amazing and informative” deep dive into the Civil Rights Era and Black history in the United States. She is also a member of the Milton Progressives, a club that meets weekly to discuss current events in politics and encourage peers to get involved. Milton offers nearly 100 student-founded and student-run clubs, including several that discuss politics from a range of perspectives.
Now, as a member of the JJAC, Edna has a front row seat to see politics in action. The JJAC reviews and approves funding related to outreach programs for incarcerated young people, as well as those who are at risk of returning to prison; the group also focuses on legal assistance and social- and emotional-health resources for incarcerated youth. Typically, the youth member of the JJAC is a college student. Edna is the committee’s youngest-ever member.
“I’m interested in criminal justice because I have always had a passion for the law,” she said. “I’ve read a lot and heard about a lot of cases where young children have gotten involved in the legal system and cannot financially support themselves to get out of it. I personally believe that it is my job, as someone who has had a lot of opportunities, to help people who are genuinely in need.”
