THEO 203: Social Justice and Injustice

THEO 203: Social Justice and Injustice

SOCIAL JUSTICE ISSUE BRIEF ASSIGNMENT

You will write an empirical “issue brief” on your social justice research topic. This is not a formal paper with an introduction, thesis, argument and conclusion. The point is to present empirical information about your issue as clearly as possible, assuming an audience that is intelligent but does not have the information that you now possess about that issue. It should be organized in a way that best helps your audience (me and your fellow students) to understand the issue. I can provide some models for you. Your paper should be from 1200-1500 words. The paper is due Thursday, March 19, before class (please email a Word doc to me at ssull1@luc.edu).

Some questions you may want to discuss (specifics will depend upon your issue): what is the situation you are addressing? How did the situation emerge? Whose actions fostered this situation? Whose interests are at stake in this situation? Who benefits/who suffers? Should things be different, and if so, how? Are there differing opinions about this? What would it take to get to a better situation?

You should identify which sorts of institutional actors are best suited to address the problem. Is this a problem best addressed by a city council, a school board, the state government, the federal government, by corporations, by consumers, by media companies – or (as is usually the case), by a combination of some of these? Is there any legislation or regulation proposed to address this problem, at the local, state or federal level?

You should provide citations for the information you present. Since this is an empirical paper, there will likely be a lot of citations. I prefer footnotes to endnotes. Footnotes and endnotes do not count toward the word total.

SOME TIPS FOR A STRONGER PAPER:

Choose a topic that is narrow enough to explore in-depth. For example, the topic “Mass Incarceration” is a very broad topic. While it might be possible to write a paper that gives a very broad overview of mass incarceration, you are more likely to have a fruitful experience writing a paper about one contributing factor to mass incarceration: cash bail, the school to prison pipeline, mandatory minimum sentences, etc. This will also make it easier to identify possible solutions that you can handle in the space of your paper.

Note that a harmful situation is only unjust if human agency was involved in bringing the situation about. An earthquake is tragic, but it is not unjust. Earthquakes do not happen because human beings acted unjustly or irresponsibly. They happen due to geologic forces that are largely beyond human control. Thus, your paper should not merely describe an unfortunate situation. It should also point to ways in which human agency helped bring about this situation. This is necessary in order to assign responsibility for injustice, and to point to a solution.

Make sure you attend to the systemic nature of the problem. It is OK to report on a case study or two, but a paper that consists primarily of anecdotal accounts of bad things happening does not go far enough. For example: we are all familiar with stories of excessive force used by police against people of color. But unless your paper includes accounts of the systemic nature of this problem, it stays at the level of individual injustice: this police officer treated this individual of color unjustly. We are looking at social justice and injustice – so you would want to discuss the issue at a systemic level. How often are people of color arrested compared to white people, for the same offense? Or, how are police trained in the use of force and are there aspects of the training that contribute to the problem?

Your paper will be stronger if you use your limited space primarily for empirical explanation of the problem or issue. While it is fine to state matter-of-factly that certain situations are unjust, do not spend a lot of your words bemoaning the injustice at stake – if you explain the problem clearly, then the injustice will be quite obvious, and your empirical description will speak for itself. In addition, in this paper, I’m not asking you to apply course theories (for example, I’m not asking you to apply Iris Marion Young’s models of responsibility to your issue). We can do that elsewhere. Here the point is to understand and explain the social justice issue. Seeing clearly, and helping others see clearly, is an ethical task in itself.