A Yale senior who is a champion debater and a first-year Yale Law School student with a passion for football are among the 32 new Rhodes Scholars from the United States.

Benjamin M. Eidelson ’08 and Isra J. Bhatty were chosen from 764 applicants from 294 colleges and universities across the United States for Rhodes Scholarships, which provide all expenses for two or three years of study at the University of Oxford in England. The winners were chosen for “high academic achievement, integrity of character, a spirit of unselfishness, respect for others, potential for leadership and physical vigor.”

Eidelson, a resident of Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania, is pursuing a double major in philosophy and political science. Elected to Phi Beta Kappa in his junior year, he says he is interested in the “intersection of morality and political science with policy and the American Constitution,” and intends someday to go to law school. He will pursue a B.Phil. in philosophy at Oxford.

During his freshman year, Eidelson received the Meeker Prize for English composition and the Riggs Prize for the humanities. A North American Parliamentary Debate Champion in 2006, he coaches debate teams in a New Haven public school, where he is also an adviser to the Robotics Club.

He is active in 24 Hours for Darfur, an organization that seeks to end the genocide there. He received a Robert Wood Johnson award for research he conducted on public health policy and published a paper on his study in a professional journal. Last summer, with support from an Arthur Liman Public Interest Fellowship awarded by the Yale Law School, Eidelson interned in the office of Newark Mayor Cory Booker (Yale Law School Class of 1997). Describing the mayor, also a former Rhodes Scholar, as a “role model,” Eidelson says that receiving a congratulatory call from Booker was a highlight of celebrating his selection as a Rhodes Scholar.

Bhatty was born in Leeds, England, and raised in a town outside of Chicago. She grew up speaking three languages at home (Urdu, Punjabi and English). She graduated from the University of Chicago in 2006 with majors in economics and Near Eastern languages and literature. She was elected to Phi Beta Kappa as a college junior and won many prizes for leadership and scholarship at the University of Chicago. She founded a tutoring program in Chicago, was an English-Urdu translator of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, led a Chicago coalition on criminal justice reform and worked closely with the inner-city Muslim Action Network. She also founded, captained and played in an intramural champion women’s football team. Bhatty has also performed as a hip-hop artist and poet and intends to continue writing poetry as a hobby.

Now in her first year at the Law School, Bhatty hopes to have a career in the public arena advocating for policies that promote social justice. At Oxford, she plans to pursue an M.Phil. in evidence-based social intervention, with a focus on programs for people of color, immigrants and substance abusers. She says she is also looking forward to working with England’s South Asian and Muslim populations.

The Rhodes Scholarship is the oldest of the international study awards available to American students. The scholarship was created in 1902 by the will of Cecil Rhodes, a British philanthropist and colonial pioneer. The 32 American Rhodes Scholars will join an international group of students chosen from 18 other jurisdictions around the world. Approximately 85 Rhodes Scholars are selected worldwide each year.

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