Alumni News
“If you really believe in something, do something about it,” says attorney Shampagne Robinson, BS ’15. “There’s always something you can do, and you’re never helpless.”
That same philosophy seems to animate all the Suffolk alumni honored at the 2025 10 Under 10 ceremony. The seven College of Arts & Sciences and three Sawyer Business School alumni—all of whom graduated from Suffolk within the past ten years—are already making an impact in their careers and communities. As Provost Rick Oches noted in his opening remarks, they’re using what they learned at Suffolk “in ways that truly matter … to create change, to lead, and to lift others along the way.”
For Robinson, that has meant advocating for fair and affordable housing, an issue she first became passionate about as a Suffolk undergraduate, when she worked as a tester for the Law School’s Housing Discrimination Testing Program. She continued that work while at Roger Williams University School of Law, and in one of her first jobs as a lawyer, began to investigate housing discrimination cases.
Robinson sees affordable housing as a core solution for a host of social issues. “If you do not have stable housing, how are you expected to have a job or go to school or spend time with your family and feel emotionally stable? Without it,” she says, “those things are near impossible.”
Today Robinson holds dual roles: as a trial attorney with the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and as special assistant US attorney for Rhode Island. (She’s also quick to say that her opinions are her own, and she does not speak for either HUD or the Department of Justice.) While Robinson prosecutes fair housing cases at both the state and federal level, she says often it’s local zoning law restrictions that dramatically limit the availability of affordable housing.
“That’s often a piece that people miss,” she says. “The federal government can’t control local zoning unless it’s discriminatory. So it’s really up to the people in the local communities to say we need more housing.”
At her core, Robinson is fueled by the belief that progress is possible, and that it’s essential to remember everyone’s humanity. “People deserve to live a good life,” she says. “Just because you win doesn’t mean someone else has to lose. Everybody can win.” —Kathleen Peets
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fall 2025
Attorney Shampagne Robinson, BS ’15, was one of ten alumni honored at the 2025 10 Under 10 awards. Photograph by Michael Webber
