A law student has channelled '90s hit Clueless in a 10,000-word dissertation on refugees. Toju Adelaja, 21, submitted the essay last week as part of her Common Law degree at the University of Glasgow.
She based her argument around a quote from the 1995 rom-com film, in which spoiled teenager Cher Horowitz (Alicia Silverstone) navigates high school life with a worldview informed solely by her rich lifestyle. Ms Adelaja, from Gravesend, Kent, hopes to achieve a first-class degree before moving into commercial law practice and doing pro bono work on immigration.
She used the basis of Cher's naive argument at the start of the film – that more refugees could be taken in if there was political will to do so – to make a legal case for it. Her dissertation titled “In conclusion, may I remind you, it does not say ‘RSVP’ on the Statue of Liberty”: Is the definition of the refugee provided in Article 1A(2) of the 1951 Refugee Convention still fit for purpose? has had friends begging to read it.
Ms Adelaja argued that refugee status could be expanded to people fleeing the climate crisis, which is currently not covered by the Geneva Convention. She also proposed that economic migrants should in some instances be considered refugees, gender violence could be extended beyond female genital mutilation and the asylum-seeking process should be expanded to be less prescriptive.
The speech that inspired Ms Adelaja was about the US accepting refugees from Haiti, which Cher compared to people failing to RSVP at a dinner party. In the film she says during a debate: "So, OK, like right now, for example, the Haitians need to come to America. But some people are all, 'What about the strain on our resources?'
"But it’s like, when I had this garden party for my father’s birthday right? I said RSVP because it was a sit-down dinner. But people came that like, did not RSVP so I was like, totally bugging. I had to haul ass to the kitchen, redistribute the food, squish in extra place settings, but by the end of the day it was like, the more the merrier!
"And so, if the government could just get to the kitchen, rearrange some things, we could certainly party with the Haitians. And in conclusion, may I please remind you that it does not say RSVP on the Statue of Liberty?"
Ms Adelaja said her "serious" law tutor was surprised at the choice. She said: "It's one of my favourite movies and I really wanted to do a dissertation that married in rom-coms.
"It is a simplistic, easy angle from the movie – that we can take in all the people if we want to, it doesn't need to be as complicated as we have made it to be. It's what Cher says at the start of the film, it's quite innocent the way it's put across.
"If we want to help more people we can – it was just about presenting it from a legal angle. It ended up being very topical."
Planning began in October and Toju began writing the dissertation in January, before the war began in Ukraine. She chose not to mention the conflict in the essay.
She said: "I submitted it last week. The main question is whether the term 'refugee' is up to date and whether it is broad enough. One thing it mentions is climate refugees – climate change is causing people to have to flee where they live but it's not seen as a cause in the Geneva Convention.
"I looked at gender because female genital mutilation is seen as justification for refugee status but there are other things in terms of gender too. I also focused on economic reasons where there has been breakdown of a government or economy, like in Zimbabwe.
"A lot of people sought refugee status in South Africa but it wasn't accepted as they were economic migrants – but that is something more voluntary. You need to be able to work and need to be able to eat.
"I'm passionate about human rights. I'm hoping to get a first."
Clueless was first released in 1995, starring Alicia Silverstone, Stacey Dash, Brittany Murphy and Paul Rudd. It is loosely based on Jane Austen's 1815 novel Emma, with a modern-day setting of Beverly Hills.
