The Minor in Justice: Theory and Practice

The Minor in Justice: Theory and Practice is an interdisciplinary undergraduate minor housed in the Department of Psychology and open to students from any major. Admission to the minor is by application. Organized around the guiding question, “What does justice look like?”, the minor brings together theoretical, empirical, historical, interpretive, and community-engaged approaches to the study of justice. A primary aim of the minor is to bridge traditional boundaries—between disciplines, between the university and the broader community, between theory and action, between empirical and interpretive approaches, and between those on the margins and those at the center of privilege. The minor is built on the premise that a core element of education is public service that is broadly inclusive, especially of those traditionally under-represented at Columbia. 

The minor leverages the academic expertise of faculty across a range of disciplines and the perspectives and experiences of community members and students affiliated with the Columbia Center for Justice, the Eric H. Holder Initiative for Civil and Political Rights, the Center for the Study of Social Difference, and the program in Negotiation and Conflict Resolution. It supports students interested in questions of inequality, rights, punishment, health, education, environment, migration, democracy, community partnership, and social change. 

Students declaring the minor will choose one of two tracks:

1. Incarceration, Public Safety, and Restorative Justice

2. Justice Perspectives on Contemporary Problems

Students choosing the second track may explore any contemporary justice problem such as the environment, the economy, or racial disparities.

Requirements (5 courses total)

Students complete:

• 1 introductory course
• 3 electives
• 1 capstone project seminar

Introductory Courses

The minor is designed for students with a wide range of perspectives. It treats questions of justice as complex and contested and emphasizes careful reasoning, intellectual humility, and sustained engagement with disagreement. These introductory classes will introduce students to the minor’s emphasis on proximity to lived experience, hearing from people directly affected by justice issues and treating them as partners in the production of knowledge.

• PSYC UN2690 / GU4612 — Frontiers of Justice
• CPLS UN3800 — Justice Now

Electives

• 1 from Conceptual Frameworks
• 1 from Justice in Context
• 1 from Tools for Justice

The structure of the minor reflects three core components: (1) engagement with competing frameworks for understanding justice, (2) analysis of how justice operates across diverse domains and lived contexts, and (3) development of practical, participatory, and interpretive tools for advancing justice in practice. Students take one course in each elective category to build frameworks for thinking about justice, examine how it operates in specific contexts, and learn approaches for advancing it in practice. 

Electives may be chosen from the list below or approved by the Director of Undergraduate Studies. Students should take a maximum of 1 elective from the department in which they are earning their major(s). Final approval of electives must be obtained from the DUS.

Conceptual Frameworks

In these courses, students will engage with competing ways of defining justice and examine how reasonable people arrive at different conclusions about what counts as just. Exploring frameworks for reasoning about disagreement will prepare students to interrogate and articulate their assumptions in working toward justice. Students will ask questions such as: How do different traditions define justice, and what do those definitions prioritize or marginalize? How should we weigh competing values such as equality vs. freedom, or rights vs. welfare? What can empirical research (e.g., from child development or environmental science) contribute to normative questions, and what are its limits? 

• PHIL UN3552 — Philosophical Problems of Climate Change
• PHIL UN3751 — Political Philosophy
• PHIL UN3756 — Critical Philosophy of Race
• PHIL W3800 — Philosophy, Justice, and Social Activism
• POLS UN3100 — Justice
• POLS GU4280 — Rationalizing the World: The Hopes and Disappointments of American Social Science from 1900 to the Present
• PSYC UN2660 — Stigma & Belonging in a Diverse Society
• PSYC GU4244 — Language & Mind
• SOCI BC3219 — Race, Ethnicity, & Society
• SOCI GU4124 — Status, Evaluation, and Inequality
• SOCI UN3914 — Inequality, Poverty, & Mobility
• URBS UN3420 — Urban Sociology 

Justice in Context
In these courses, students will examine how justice and injustice are produced, contested, and experienced within specific systems, institutions, and lived environments. Students will ask questions such as: How do institutions and policies generate and sustain inequality over time? How do historical conditions shape present-day disparities? How do different stakeholders’ perspectives, interests, and experiences diverge, and why are the same policies understood differently by different groups? Students may choose a course from any area below.

Carceral Systems

• CLME UN3928 — Arabic Prison Writing
• EDUC BC3033 — Youth Confinement, Constraint, and Resistance
• ENGL GU4975 — Prison Literature
• HIST UN3418 — The Carceral United States
• HIST GU4588 — Race, Drugs, and Inequality
• POLS BC3315 — Theories of Punishment and the American Carceral System
• POLS UN3255 — Race and the U.S. Carceral System
• SOCI UN2501 — Politics of Mass Incarceration 

Health and Development

• HIST UN2523 — Health Inequality: Modern United States
• PSYC UN3615 — Children at Risk
• PUBH UN3400 — Data Science and Health Equity in NYC
• SOCI BC3202 — Structural Determinants of Health 

Cities and Environment

• CPLS GU4825 — Technology and Justice
• CSER GU4007 — Latinx Environmental Justice
• EESC UN1201 — Environmental Risks and Disasters
• ENGL UN3884 — Climate Fictions
• ENGL GU4199 — Literature and Oil
• SOCI BC3956 — Surveillance
• URBS UN3450 — Neighborhood & Community Development
• URBS UN3451 — Urban Environmental Justice
• URBS UN3452 — Housing Policy in the United States 

Migration and Borders

• CSER UN3490 — Post-9/11 Immigration Policies
• ENGL BC3281 — Illegal is Not a Noun
• FREN GU4082 — Rebel Literature: Politics and the Novel
• HIST BC3670 — Seeking Asylum 

Power and Organization 

• CPLS GU4825 — Technology and Justice
• CSER GU4004 — Data, Race, Power and Justice
• JWST UN2155 — Music, Sound, and Antisemitism
• RELI GU4216 — Religion and Capitalism
• SOCI BC3956 — Surveillance 

Tools for Justice
These courses will equip students with tools to enact justice in the real world. Approaches may include research, organizing, policy work, storytelling, and community engagement, among others. They will ask questions such as: What kinds of strategies are available for creating change, and when is each appropriate? Should change be pursued within existing institutions or outside them? How do resource constraints, bureaucracy, and political realities shape what is possible? When is it better to aim for large-scale transformation versus incremental change? When and how should we engage with others despite fundamental disagreement?

• AHIS UN2425 — Visual Activism
• ANTH BC3868 — Ethnographic Field Research in NYC
• EDUC BC3043 — Making Change: Activism and Social Movements
• ENGL UN3814 — Law Stories: Creative Nonfiction Workshop
• FREN UN3725 — Asylum/Asile: Theory and Practice of Asylum
• HU GU4439 — Harm Reduction and/as Historical Analysis
• PSYC UN1495 — Research Methods: Data Science, Justice and Social Change
• PSYC GU4885 — Philanthropy and Just Societies
• PSYC GU4890 — Laboratory in Justice Data Science
• PSYC GU4940 — Qualitative Methods: Participatory Inquiry
• SOCI UN3235 — Social Movements
• SOCI UN3721 — Social Justice: Connecting Academics to Action 

Capstone Project Seminar

The minor culminates in a capstone seminar centered on a senior project. Students draw on coursework across the minor to develop an original project addressing a significant justice-related issue. Projects may take multiple forms, including policy analysis, community-based partnerships, applied research, or creative work. For example, students pursuing social science approaches may collaborate with community or government organizations to address concrete policy problems, whereas students working in the arts and humanities may develop creative or interpretive projects that explore how justice is represented, experienced, and contested.

Advising and Affiliated Faculty

The minor is housed in the Department of Psychology. The Director of Undergraduate Studies for the minor is Nora Isacoff ([email protected]).

Advisory Board

Julie Crawford, Mark Van Doren Professor of the Humanities, Department of English and Comparative Literature

Peter Dixon, Associate Professor of Professional Practice in the Faculty of Professional Studies, School of Professional Studies; Program Director, Negotiation and Conflict Resolution Program

Geraldine Downey, Robert Johnston Niven Professor of Humane Letters in Psychology

Frank Guridy, Dr. Kenneth and Kareitha Forde Professor of African American and African Diaspora Studies, Professor of History and Director of the Holder Center

Nora Isacoff, Lecturer and Director of Undergraduate Research and Engagement in Psychology, Director of Undergraduate Studies for Justice: Theory and Practice

Larry Jackson, PhD, Associate Dean of Academic Affairs and Director of the Center for the Core Curriculum, Columbia College

Teresa Sharpe, Sr. Lecturer and DUS, Department of Sociology

Oliver Simons, Professor of Germanic Languages

Nicole Wallack, Sr. Lecturer in English and Comparative Literature, Director of the Columbia Undergraduate Writing Program