FREMONT – A defender of immigrants, Law Day Liberty Bell award winner Mónica Ramírez feels she truly represents the American dream.
The Sandusky County Bar Association 2026 Law Day was celebrated May 1 in Fremont, with keynote speaker Ohio Supreme Court Justice Jennifer Brunner, and the topic for the day was “Rule of law and the American dream.”
“We take for granted what we have in our system in our rule of law. A rule of law is really something that is a concept that it’s something we believe in, because it’s an ideal,” Brunner said. “It’s something we place up here, that we like to have our trust, so that we can have predictability in what we do, that we can have safety, and when done very well, we have that pursuit of happiness that was talked about in the Declaration of Independence 250 years ago.”
Brunner related her experiences with USAID law work in Serbia and what it can mean when the rule of law is challenged by corruption.
“I couldn’t believe what 25% unemployment looked like. It meant that an air traffic controller also had to be a massage therapist to make ends meet for his family,” Brunner said.
She related the story of a pregnant woman and how corruption affected health care in a country where the government provided health insurance.
“In order to for me to get a room in a hospital, for me to have my baby, for two women, not six, and to have well-baby care, I had to pay my doctor $2,500, so he could pay off people in the hospital to get me what I needed to have my baby,” Brunner said. “That is a failure of the rule of law.”
Part of the problem was with a new constitution being brought in with new administrations.
“We only have words. We do our craft as lawyers and judges with words, and we have to weigh carefully what we say. That’s why, as a justice on the Supreme Court, when I criticize a majority opinion that I’m writing a dissent about, and in my role I write a lot of dissents, if you care about party labels, there’s only one Democrat on this [Ohio] Supreme Court and you are looking at her, and there’s only one Democrat in statewide office, right now in Ohio, and that would be me too,” Brunner said. “So, regardless of how different my opinion is from what may be the majority opinion, for me, I criticize the opinion, I don’t criticize the justice or the judge because my job, in the words that I use, is to uphold the dignity of the court, and if I don’t show respect for the court, then how will the people I serve show that same respect for the court?”
Ramírez has spent her career representing farmworkers and other migrant women who are survivors of sexual violence at work, as well as other civil rights cases. She runs the Fremont-based nonprofit she founded, Justice for Migrant Women.
Ramírez is a lawyer and a Mexican American who grew up in Sandusky County. Her father worked in Mississippi fields as an 8-year-old.
“In just one generation, I stand before you as an attorney, and I stand here before you holding the dreams of my entire family,” Ramírez said. “We’re not here to only talk about how hard work and discipline, mixed with some good luck, some grace and some chance, can result in significant change in the lives and trajectories of many people, but we’re also here to talk about the law and how it has facilitated or inhibited the possibilities of some people to achieve the American dream.”
Ramírez spoke about some of the many problems migrants, especially those from Mexico, face in the United States.
“Immigrant community members have been villainized. We have seen a steady rise of anti-Latino hate crimes across our country, regardless of whether people are citizens or not,” she said. “My goal is to clear up some misunderstandings with the basic immigration law concepts.”
Ramírez’s remarks brought one audience member, Marcy Garcia, to tears, counting herself lucky that she didn’t have to work in the fields.
“My grandpa is from Mexico. So, if it wasn’t for him taking that leap to come to America, I don’t know where I would be today. He came at the age of 14. He started off in Texas and then he went to Arizona, all the way to New York and he ended up in Ohio,” Garcia said. “It made me think of my family. Hearing her made me think of my grandpa, who helped raise us and he lived with us. That’s why it made me so emotional. She’s speaking of my people.”
Garcia works in a Fremont law office.
Sandusky County Magistrate Kimberly Ontko, Bar Association trustee, also announced the Mary Brady Scholarship recipients: Maddie Wammes, who will attend Capital University Law School, and Michaela Eberhard, who will attend Ohio State University Moritz College of Law.
Contact Roger LaPointe at 419-332-2674.
This article originally appeared on Fremont News-Messenger: Ramirez wins Liberty Bell award from Bar Association
Reporting by Roger LaPointe, Fremont News-Messenger / Fremont News-Messenger
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