The interdisciplinary justice studies program celebrates a successful first academic year.
The interdisciplinary Justice Studies Program (JUST) offers UT students the opportunity to integrate social sciences, humanities, and law to gain an enhanced, real-world understanding of social and economic justice issues across a variety of fields and career paths.
The program launched in 2024 as part of the college’s Consortium on Social and Cultural Inquiry (CoSCI). An undergraduate minor in justice studies became available in fall 2025 and the program now also offers a graduate certificate.
JUST courses have ignited student interest in studying justice issues across disciplines.
“Our Foundations of Justice Studies course almost filled up with 32 students in the fall,” said Tyler Wall, program chair and associate professor in the Department of Sociology. “This level of enthusiasm is great given this is the first time we have ever offered the course. We will be offering it again in fall 2026, with myself as the professor.”
College-Wide Curriculum
The field of justice studies addresses big-picture questions, pulling insight from multiple arts and sciences departments, including sociology, anthropology, Africana studies, political science, philosophy, religious studies, women and gender sexuality studies, geography, and history. The curriculum equips students with a comprehensive and contextualized understanding of justice and injustice from a wide array of perspectives.
“This curriculum looks at how the structures of power, conflict and harm, violence, and inequality link up with the different experiences of different populations,” said Wall. “Who benefits from that and who doesn’t? It asks these questions while also trying to put it in a concrete, historical and contemporary context.”
While JUST operates separately from the college’s Appalachian Justice Research Center (AJRC), it does serve as the curricular home for the AJRC’s Appalachian Justice Research Lab. This valuable collaboration benefits coursework and student experience in the program.
“The AJRC connection has been wonderful and a key part of fulfilling the mission of justice studies,” said Wall. “Whereas AJRC has a regional focus on Appalachia, the justice studies interdisciplinary program is concerned more with the study of justice and injustice broadly construed, even as this will, of course, entail local and regional contexts.”
Guest Speaker Series for Justice Studies
JUST and the AJRC collaborate often to co-sponsor public events. Wall and the justice studies steering committee—including Professor of Sociology Michelle Brown (co-director of AJRC), Associate Professor of English Lisa King, Assistant Professor of Sociology Bill McClanahan, and Assistant Professor of Anthropology Tatiana Sánchez-Parra— organized a speaker series of distinguished scholars to present topics to students throughout this academic year, funded by the college’s Haines-Morris Endowment program.
Speakers have included Diana Ojeda, on climate justice in the Colombian Caribbean; Emma Russell on risk, insecurity, and bail justice; Maggie Jackson on fighting domestic violence in Native American communities; and most recently Alejandra Diaz de Leon on the ways that migrant workers in Mexico form support systems. A May 5 talk will feature Associate Professor of Sociology Michelle Christian.
“All of these talks have been possible due to the Haines-Morris Endowment,” said Wall. “For the first three talks, we had 50 to 70 people in attendance, including faculty, graduate and undergraduate students, and members of the larger public, again showing the enthusiasm surrounding Justice Studies as an interdisciplinary program.”
by Randall Brown