As I sat in class last fall, a professor asked her students what social justice means to them. With little time to reflect, my answer was generic- social justice means equality and fairness for all. Having had time to reflect, I realized that my experiences at UST Law have truly shaped my definition of social justice.

As a student in the Community Justice Project, my experiences inform my understanding of the severe injustices that our community faces. Through CJP, students have the opportunity to create programming for youth who have been involved in the criminal justice system, work towards reducing the racial disparities that affect our juvenile justice system, help indigent clients afford adequate legal counsel, and educate themselves on a number of other social justice issues. Through my involvement on the Public Service Board, I have had the opportunity to mobilize volunteers to respond to social justice needs in our community. On Public Service Day this fall, students assisted the poor by organizing a Catholic Charities food shelf, the use of which has increased 42% this year.  Students also volunteered to build and repair homes for the underprivileged and supported housing for people living with HIV/AIDS.

As a result of my experiences at UST Law, I define social justice as ensuring that every individual is afforded basic rights and freedoms to which all humans are entitled and realize that each individual can play a part in addressing the needs and improving the conditions of the disadvantaged and underserved.

Since 2001, when the School of Law pledged itself to a mission that included “a focus on morality and social justice,” much has been accomplished here by people or groups that bring a particular social justice focus to their work.  The Community Justice Project, and Brotherhood Inc.; the recent conference on juvenile justice; the new research network dedicated to alternative dispute resolution in Latin America; and last year’s symposium on human trafficking are all admirable examples.  But such achievements, however impressive, don’t mean that the School of Law, as a whole, is focused on social justice.  We’ve yet to build a law school “where [Catholic] social teaching is central, not fringe; where social ministry is integral, not optional; where it is the work of every believer, not just the mission of a few committed people and committees.”  (U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Communities of Salt and Light, 1993, p. 4.)  To focus – as an institution – on social justice, we have much more to do.

In 2003, the Dean’s Task Force on Mission (on which I served) recommended the creation of a Center for Social Justice to coordinate, communicate, and develop social justice projects at the School of Law.  For the short term, the group recommended assigning this work to a designated social justice coordinator and to a new social justice advisory committee.  Unfortunately, these recommendations ultimately went nowhere.  Today, as a result, other law schools – schools that do more to coordinate, communicate, and develop social justice activities, have begun to pass us by.

One example – though by no means the only one – is the Access to Justice Institute (ATJI) at Seattle University.  ATJI works directly with local, statewide, and national social justice organizations, not only to connect law students to social justice jobs, but also to develop short-term and long-term social justice projects and partnerships.  Among ATJI’s many initiatives are “Social Justice Mondays,” a weekly series of social justice-focused panels, speakers, forums, and films; and the Lawyering in a Diverse World workshop series, which focuses on diversity and inclusion.  ATJI has also developed a social justice speaker series, which invites social justice lawyers to speak to 1Ls about how first-year courses, like Property and Contracts, relate directly to social justice advocacy.  Another project, the ATJI Legal Writing Collaborative, connects legal writing teachers with social justice legal organizations to help develop legal writing assignments that include social justice issues.  Finally, ATJI oversees a $40,000 Leadership for Justice Fellowship, which allows recent law graduates to work with host organizations on social justice projects.

It’s hard to imagine such things happening here at St. Thomas.  Six years after the Mission Task Force report, we still lack a Center for Social Justice; still effectively lack a social justice coordinator; still lack any person or group whose main responsibility is helping the School of Law focus on social justice.

Some social justice ideas, it’s true, will require resources – money – at a time when resources are scarce.  (It’s equally true, of course, that it’s exactly at such times when the need for social justice is most acute.)  But there’s also much we can do at little or no cost.  The work of a social justice coordinator, for instance, can be performed initially by the (unpaid) members of a social justice committee of faculty, staff, students, and alumni.  Such a group can start by doing a simple inventory of past and present social justice projects at the School of Law, and by comparing such projects to what’s happening at other law schools.  If the obstacle is money, perhaps we ought to discuss how to get it, or how we’ll use it when we do.  (Identifying specific projects is often an effective way to raise funds.)  At the moment, though, such discussions aren’t even taking place.  Though we’ve said that a social justice focus is one of our long-term aims, we’ve yet to develop a long-term strategy for achieving it.

It’s true that we differ from other law schools in one vital respect: we’re open to faith, to studying law by the light of faith.  We rightly insist that everything we do as lawyers, including social justice, is and ought to be shaped by faith.  But, just as we won’t be redeemed by faith’s presence alone, see, e.g., James 2:14-26, our school’s faith orientation does not, in itself, provide an organized institutional focus on social justice.  Nor can faith’s presence alone provide the dedication, the energy, or the institutional commitment to create such a focus.  Down that particular path, we’ve scarcely begun.

With an African-American president in the White House, some mistakenly believe that we are living in a post-racial society. I say that this belief is mistaken for a number of reasons. One piece of evidence that supports my contention includes the daunting statistics faced by black children in Minnesota. For example, according to the Children’s Defense Fund of Minnesota, 41% of black children live in poverty here, compared with 11% of white children; 88% of black 4^th graders in public schools in Minnesota perform below grade level in reading, compared with 58% of white children; and only 39% of black children in Minnesota graduate from high school in four years. Finally, Minnesota is one of eight states with the highest rates of racial disparities within its juvenile justice system.

In the face of this mounting evidence of racial disparities we can do one of two things: We can either a) blame it all on the parents of children that are falling through the cracks in Minnesota or b) examine the structures that are in place that support such disparities and work to systematically dismantle them. Given the availability of opportunities for higher education and industry in Minnesota, it would seem that if we are committed to putting our heads together and resolve to “dig deeper,” we would be able to solve some of the intersecting issues faced by “the least of these.” If each of us decided to do our part on behalf of our neighbors, we would begin to see things change for the better for all of our children.

By: Teresa S. Collett
Professor of Law

As my inaugural contribution to this blog I thought it might be helpful to explain the mission of the Prolife Center at St. Thomas. The Center is dedicated to the development and defense of laws recognizing the right to life of every innocent human being, with a particular focus on abortion as a violation of the rights of the unborn child. The Center focuses on abortion because abortion is unique among issues of social justice.  First, abortion involves the intentional taking of innocent human life, unlike war and capital punishment, which target combatants and wrong-doers respectively. Second, abortion is unique in the number of innocent lives lost –almost 42 million unborn children die each year worldwide. No war or criminal justice system begins to approach these lethal numbers. Even poverty and disease do not take the same number of children’s lives.  Ten times more children die from abortions than die from other causes before their first birthday.  Third, abortion requires a whole group of human beings, the unborn, be classified as “non-persons” – a classification not seen in American law since the infamous case of Dred Scott v. Sanford.

Protection of innocent human life is the first among the principles of social justice. The Prolife Center evidences the law school’s commitment to this principle.

My two children had their annual first-day-of-school last week.  Teachers used to ask their students to write an essay on the topic “What I Did On My Summer Vacation” on the first day of school.

What did I do on my summer vacation? I learned that Catholic social teaching identifies charity and justice as the two components of social justice.

For many of you, this is not new information. For me, a cradle Presbyterian, it was. I interviewed Deb Organ, who previously taught at Saint Paul Seminary, about Catholic social teaching in connection with a project I completed for Dean Mengler this summer. Deb informed me that Catholic social teaching defines social justice as “creating a more even table[1].”  She went on to inform me that there are two components to this definition of social justice: charity, and justice.

UST Law’s mission calls on us to “search for truth” through a “focus on morality and social justice.”  We believe we are “inspired by Catholic social teaching” to serve the needs of the poor and disadvantaged.

We live out the charity component of social justice through our public service requirement. Students logged 16,816 hours of public service during the 2008-2009 school year with group service projects at the Salvation Army and Tubman Family Alliance. We live out the justice component too. We represent vulnerable clients through the Immigration Law and Elder Law Clinics. We advocate for social change through the Community Justice Project and the Pro-Life Center. We provide financial support for students committed to public interest law through our Roach Fellows and Loan Repayment Assistance programs.

We will highlight UST Law’s charity and justice work, and write on relevant topics, through this blog. I’ve asked Professors Teresa Collett, Nekima Levy-Pounds, and Mitch Gordon, and students Trusha Patel (PSB President) and Christy Botts (Roach Fellow) to join me in writing regular posts on a rotating basis. There’s room for guest writers, too.

May charity and justice guide us.
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[1] Source: Interview with Deb Organ on July 8, 2009.  I found a list of the key principles of Catholic social teaching at the Office of Social Justice web site at www.osjspm.org