He has studied with the academic elite at Oxford, he?s worked under the Chief Latinist of the Catholic Church. He has played a game of touch football with former President Bill Clinton and has met the Queen of England at Buckingham Palace.Most recently he has taught at Oxford, interned in a Washington D.C. law office and traveled to the Middle East to study the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.
He?s only 26, yet Atkins native Rhett Martin has already experienced more than most do in a lifetime.
Four years ago, Rhett Martin was a senior Honors College student studying philosophy at the University of Central Arkansas, but in late 2001, he was selected as one of only 32 students in the United States to receive a prestigious Rhodes scholarship. His life has not been the same since.
In January, Martin was one of only about a dozen Rhodes Scholars selected to travel to the Middle East and take part in a week of seminars and lectures aimed at educating future policy-shapers about the conflict between Israel and Palestine. The trip was sponsored by the lobbying group American Jewish Committee.
Each day, Martin learned about the conflict from Middle Eastern politicians, diplomats and military officers. ?They would give a historical and political analysis of the conflict and we would ask questions,? he said. ?Usually, at the end of the day we would tour a holy site. We saw the Wailing Wall and the site where Jesus is believed to have been crucified, so the trip tied together a good combination of the old and the new ? lots of current affairs and then you?d go see sites where things happened 2,000 or 3,000 years ago.?
Martin said he and several others stayed an extra day after the seminars and lectures had ended and visited the formerly-occupied territories of the West Bank.
?We went to Bethlehem to the site where Jesus was born and the Church of the Nativity was there. In April of 2002 there was a siege and Palestinian militants fled into the church for sanctuary. Israeli troops pumped rounds of bullets into the church trying to get these militants, so when you go to see this church that was built over the manger where Christ was born and see that it is riddled with bullet holes ? nothing could be a more powerful symbol and statement of what?s at stake and how terrible and violent the conflict is.?
Before he was selected as a Rhodes Scholar, Martin?s plan was to continue his academic career in hopes of becoming a philosophy professor. After two years of intensive study at Oxford, he found a new interest ? law.
?It?s philosophical in a way,? he said. ?So I can keep those interests alive. Law is interesting to me because you?re making abstract arguments that affect the way people live ? on a level. If the Supreme Court decides free speech means this or that, it can directly affect what books you can buy and the things you can read in the newspaper. I think it would be very exciting to work on those types of cases that can have such a direct impact.?
After discovering his new interest, Martin completed a summer internship at a law firm in Washington D.C. During his internship, Martin was exposed to Harvard Law School. ?The guy I worked for runs a Supreme Court litigation clinic there,? he said.
After much consideration, Martin applied for admission to Harvard Law School. The oldest law school in the country, Harvard admits a fairly large class annually, which is important to Martin. ?I want to be able to meet a lot of different types of people and that, combined with Harvard?s tradition and possible networking opportunities, made it my first choice,? he said.
When he begins classes this fall, Martin plans to focus his studies on constitutional law. While he admits that all constitutional issues are important, Martin is particularly interested in issues such as the commerce clause, which determines the power of the federal government versus state government. ?To government people that is very controversial and important, but most people probably don?t follow the history of the commerce clause as closely,? he said. ?I?d like to become a competent, good attorney in arguing those types of cases before the appellate courts or maybe even the Supreme Court, if I?m fortunate enough, someday.?
While Harvard Law School is a big jump from his higher education beginnings at UCA, Martin said he is well prepared thanks, in part, to the Honors College. ?Everyone who comes from the Honors College has a good grasp of the fundamentals of the history of the big ideas, political thought and ethics, and they are conversant on a very high level. People who thought that those are Ivy League subjects, are very surprised to see that it was part of my curriculum at UCA,? he said.
