Social Justice Commons^™

Treatment Access For Dual Diagnosis Substance Use And Mental Health Disorders, Pedro Banuelos

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

In 2018, of 1.3 million Latinx adults in the United States facing concurrent issues with substance use disorders (SUD) and mental health disorders (MHD) 93% remained untreated for either diagnosis. This is concerning since Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) data reveals that this population is at greater risk for suicidal thoughts, plans, and attempts. They also face structural barriers such as employment, housing, legal involvement, and insurability that further impede access to treatment.

This study’s purpose was to examine barriers to accessing treatment for Latinx populations confronting co-occurring SUDs and MHDs. This study used a qualitative design …

Disparities In Access To Assisted Reproductive Technology Among Hispanic Women In The United States, Madison Gallagher

Honors Thesis

Infertility is a health problem that affects approximately 7 million women in the United States (Ethics Committee of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, 2015). Due to the high costs of reproductive medicine and infertility treatment, these services tend to be expensive and have limited accessibility without full insurance coverage. Emerging literature outlines the disparities in access to proper treatment for reproductive complications. These existing studies highlight that many minority populations in the United States experience increased challenges regarding access to reproductive medicine and infertility treatment. Among these minority groups are Hispanic women, who are more likely to require reproductive …

Just Mercy: Mass Incarceration And The Death Penalty, Sophie Auerbach

Politics and International Relations Presentations

My poster will examine criticisms by Bryan Stevenson in his book Just Mercy. Stevenson points to problems in the U.S. Prison and Justice systems, including mass incarceration, racial bias and sentencing, unfair convictions, and why the use of the death penalty is an unjust and impractical form of punishment that should be abolished. My poster will summarize many of these problems, as well as examine supporting evidence and evaluate different proposals for criminal justice reform.

Racial Racial Discrimination Within The United States Criminal Justice System, Courtney Speigal

Honors Projects

For my senior honors project, I chose the topic of discrimination within our criminal justice system. I will be attending law school next year, and this topic has inspired me to become a lawyer. 2020 has been a year with a lot of protesting against social injustice, and change in our democracy. The Black Lives Matter Movement came to light once again, because of a number of questionable cases involving African American citizens. Considering all of this, I decided to research further the discrimination in our country, in a number of areas. I also will be looking at how we …

End Of The Line: The Women Of Standing Rock, Gary Saul

Journal of Religion & Film

This is a film review of End of the Line: The Women of Standing Rock (2021), directed by Shannon Kring.

First African American Female Law Graduate Carved Path To Success, St Mary's University

Black History at St. Mary's University - 2025 Collection

Hattie Elam Briscoe is among one of the most notable alumni in St. Mary’s University history, and St. Mary’s School of Law history as well.  Briscoe was the first black woman to graduate from St. Mary’s Law, and one of the first 50 women to graduate from law school. After university, Briscoe went on to have a successful career as well as garnering awards for her notoriety, skill, and service. Briscoe was also a member of many organizations and boards, some of them being the San Antonio Bar Association, Texas Bar Association, National Association of Black Women Attorneys and more. …

The Arena Players, Inc.: The Oldest Continuously Operating African American Community Theatre In The United States, Alexis Michelle Skinner

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Hay (1994) gave the Arena Players the moniker, “the oldest continuously operating African American community theatre company” in the U.S. But, if Black Theatre is increasingly found in mainstream venues in regional theatre and Broadway while Black Drama is relegated to syllabi, where is the living practice of African American, or black, community theatre? And what guarantees its survival? Craig (1980) and Fraden (1994) give voice to black critics, like Locke (1925), in co-creating objectives for black theatre during the FTP which took stage as the Negro Little Theatre continued. Hill & Hatch (2003) solidify the geographical and ideological connections …

Asian American And Pacific Islander Presidential Fellows Report, Betty T. Izumi, Bree Kalima

OHSU-PSU School of Public Health Faculty Publications and Presentations

Since the 2010 Census, Oregon’s Asian American population has grown by 42.3% and its Pacific Islander population has grown by 57.3%, making these groups the fastest growing in the state (US Census Bureau, 2019; US Census Bureau, 2020a). In the Portland metropolitan area, these populations experienced a growth of 42.1% and 64.7%, respectively (US Census Bureau, 2019; US Census Bureau, 2020a). Although Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPIs) are often lumped together as a monolith, they differ from each other in ethnicity and also culture, politics, socioeconomic status, language, religion, immigration status, and migration and colonization histories. Given the history …

School Leaders Supporting Students Of Color In Predominately-White Schools, Jonathan Swan

Educational Studies Dissertations

Legal challenges to racial segregation and changes in the racial composition of many suburbs have altered the racial makeup of public schools in the United States. This phenomenological study looked at how principals in Predominately-White schools (PWS) and educator facilitators for a state desegregation program (DP) learn about the perceptions of students of color (SOC) in their schools, address negative perceptions of SOC, and attempt to support SOC; it also inquired about hindrances to their efforts to serve SOC more effectively. Thematic analysis of transcripts of interviews with five principals and four desegregation facilitators led to 10 findings. Critical Race …

Creating Democratic Spaces For Addressing Racism On College Campuses: The Example Of Dialogue To Change At Oklahoma State University, Martha Mccoy

eJournal of Public Affairs

Polarizing rhetoric, racist violence, and racial inequality continue to cast a dark shadow over democracy and threaten to further divide our communities. How our country moves forward in this time is under consideration by practitioners, scholars, and everyday people alike. This article begins by reviewing the Dialogue to Change approach Everyday Democracy has developed to expand opportunities for the people of our country to grapple with racism together, across racial backgrounds, and then work with each other and public officials to create positive, equitable change at local, state, and national levels. The second part of the article looks at the …

Review Of Lisa Kemmerer's Sister Species: Women, Animals, And Social Justice, Marine Lercier

Between the Species

What do we have in common with animals, and what do these women have in common? We are Sister Species, if not sisters at all. Lisa Kemmerer invites us to realize that we are more alike than different and to become aware of what our animal brothers and especially sisters experience: the suffering they endure because of our absurd inconsistencies and oppositions - even within the animal rights movement, often unbeknownst to us. The goal: more effective discourse and action, educating us to the other in the face of a norm imposed by a power, a discourse of normalization …

Protest Music In Response To The United States’ Oppressive Political Culture: An Analysis Of Beyoncé'S "Freedom" And Janelle Monáe's "Americans", Jessica Torrey

HMC Senior Theses

This paper aims to study a popular musical artist’s responsibility towards the empowerment of marginalized communities in the United States through an analysis of the songs “Freedom” by Beyoncé and “Americans” by Janelle Monáe. These songs will be analyzed in conjunction with the political climate during the time of their fabrication and release as well as the political climates discussed in the songs themselves. This paper presents a thorough analysis of the lyrical and musical components of both songs as well as an analysis of a specific performance of both songs. These analyses will be presented in conversation with many …

Mobilization Of Women In Africa: The 2019 Sudanese Uprising, Mahder Habtemariam Serekberhan

African American Studies - All Scholarship

In 2019 we witnessed the possibilities of a multi-ethnic, multi-religious, multi-racial, multi-cultural, and multi-gendered democracy and a bottom-up democratization process led by women. Sudanese youth and women led and participated in mobilization and demonstration that not only reflected the mass character of the social formation, but also managed to subvert the Islamist military dependent capitalist state (and its apparatus). Over the span of 30 years, the regime, under Omar al-Bashir, managed to entrench and escalate structures and systems of exploitation and oppression necessary for capital accumulation. The intensified neoliberalization and militarization, at the expense of women’s super-exploitation, was made possible …

‘The Environment Is Us’: Settler Cartographies Of Indigeneity And Blackness In Prophecy (1979), Kali Simmons

Indigenous Nations Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

This article examines the triangulation of whiteness, Blackness, and Indigeneity in the ‘creature feature’ sf-horror film Prophecy (Frankenheimer US 1979), arguing that the film’s renderings of environmental racism ultimately function to justify white supremacist hetero-patriarchal maintenance and surveillance of Black and Indigenous lands and bodies. A close examination of Prophecy’s representational and ideological shortfalls – in particular its renderings of Black and Indigenous maternity – reveals troubling entanglements between settler-colonial logics of geography, ecology, monstrosity, and subjectivity.

Working Towards Land Return In Goukdi’N: A History Of Genocide And A Future Of Healing, Carrie Tully

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Since 2009, the city of Arcata, R. H. Emmerson & Sons, and Humboldt State University have collaborated on the transfer of an 884-acre tract of land in Goukdi’n (known locally as Jacoby Creek Forest). The main goals of this project are to prevent fragmentation of the land, protect wildlife, and to support and enhance student research opportunities. In the ten years that it took for this land to be transferred to the California State University and in the care of Humboldt State University the Wiyot Tribe was not consulted regarding the parcels, their purchase, or their being given to HSU. …

A Fat Imposter: The Embodied Intersection Between Race, Body Type And Fatness In Margaret Cho’S Comedy, Julia Cox

Theses and Dissertations--Linguistics

Margaret Cho is a comedic goddess who, in her mockery, serves flaming hot social commentary about race, body image, and fatness. Within this thesis, I used critical discourse analysis to understand how Margaret Cho embodies Asianness, whiteness, and the body types and images prescribed respectively. While working on data analysis, I came across a common media trope of fat women: the use of indexically Southern (United States), Appalachian, and Working class indexicals in speech and lexical items. I connected the ideologies surrounding Southern and Appalachian language to the inequalities that fat women face. This voicing had not previously been written …

Blacks In Oregon, Darrell Millner

Black Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

Periodically, newspaper or magazine articles appear proclaiming amazement at how white the population of Oregon and the City of Portland is compared to other parts of the country. It is not possible to argue with the figures—in 2017, there were an estimated 91,000 Blacks in Oregon, about 2 percent of the population—but it is a profound mistake to think that these stories and statistics tell the story of the state's racial past. In fact, issues of race and the status and circumstances of Black life in Oregon are central to understanding the history of the state, and perhaps its future …

America’S Presidential Crisis Of Legitimacy: How The Electoral College Became Obsolete And How We Can Fix It, Julia Rose Foodman

Scripps Senior Theses

The goal of this thesis is to critique the current American Presidential electoral system, the Electoral College, and to show what an alternative could potentially mean for the American people. This paper seeks to answer the following questions: What are the main arguments for the Electoral College, why are they troubling, and how can we mend American Presidential elections for the greater purposes of political equality, democracy, and freedom? To do so, core arguments made by conservative pundits in favor of the Electoral College are outlined in order to bring attention to their logical, political, and moral inconsistencies. The inequalities …

Dispassionate Damming: Site C And The Inertia Of Colonial Development, Elizabeth Rudderow

Capstone Showcase

Historically, massive hydroelectric projects have caused irreparable harm to ecosystems and resulted in the dispossession and displacement of indigenous peoples worldwide. Such development projects prioritize wealth wrought from material extraction over the total health of ecological systems. The case of the Site C dam in British Columbia is another settler-colonial development project which is set to destroy a valley in the name of energy production. Treaty 8 First Nations argue that the dam will impede on treaty rights, as the clogging of the river and partial flooding of the valley will negatively impact indigenous ways of life. BC Hydro, the …

Now You See Me — Now You Don’T: An Investigation Of Hair Alterations Effects On Face Identification In Own- And Other-Race Faces, Maresa A. Tate

Senior Independent Study Theses

No abstract provided.

Applying The Present To The Past: The Experiences Of Five Civil Rights Rabbis In Context Of Contemporary Leadership Theory, Bradley G. Levenberg

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

This dissertation examines the experiences of five civil rights-era rabbis (William Silverman, Randall Falk, Alfred Goodman, Irving Bloom, and Burton Padoll) to highlight their contributions, leadership approaches, struggles, and achievements with a particular emphasis on social justice. As each of the rabbis drew from their understanding of the richness of the Jewish textual canon, the study includes a survey of Biblical, Talmudic, and contemporary Jewish sources that laid the groundwork for their rabbinic activism and which compel rabbis today. The study dramatically highlights those texts as providing applicable strategies with regard to leading a congregation with a “prophetic” voice, knowing …

I, Too, Sing Neurodiversity, Morénike Giwa Onaiwu

Ought: The Journal of Autistic Culture

The neurodiversity community was envisioned as an inclusive and welcoming space for individuals with neurological conditions such as ADHD, autism, Tourette’s Syndrome, giftedness, dyslexia, dyscalculia, dyspraxia, intellectual disability, NVLD and related diagnoses. The underlying premise of neurodiversity is that people present with various neurological differences and there is value in acknowledging and accepting these differences. Despite efforts made over the past few decades, a growing number of individuals within the neurodiversity community, including people of color, have called for intersectional concepts to be more intentionally and more effectively interwoven into neurodiversity as a whole. Referencing “I, Too,” a decades-old poem …

Remembrance And Renewal At Tuluwat: Restoring The Center Of The World, Kerri J. Malloy

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

In 2004, the City of Eureka, California, returned 40 acres of land on Indian Island in Humboldt Bay, the site of a massacre in 1860 that brought the Wiyot to the brink of extinction. Ten years later the City of Eureka initiated the extraordinary action of apologizing to the Wiyot for the massacre that occurred 154 years earlier. The official apology which had been released to the public was transformed into a statement of support after review by the City’s legal counsel. The historical significance of the attempted inhalation of the Wiyot and the actions of the City of Eureka …

Minecrafting Bar Mitzvah: Two Rabbis Negotiating And Cultivating Learner-Driven Inclusion Through New Media., Owen Gottlieb

Articles

In 2013, a boy with special needs used the video game Minecraft to deliver the sermon at his bar mitzvah at a Reform synagogue, an apparently unique ritual phenomenon to this day. Using a narrative inquiry approach, this article examines two rabbis’ negotiations with new media, leading up to, during, and upon reflection after the event. The article explores acceptance, innovation, and validation of new media in religious practice, drawing on Campbell’s (2010) framework for negotiation of new media in religious communities. Clergy biography, philosophy, and institutional context all impact the negotiations with new media. By providing context of a …

Black Freedom Beyond Borders: Memories Of Abolition Day, Amber Butts, Ayize Jama-Everett, Calvin Williams, Donte Clark, Lisa K. Bates, Naudika Williams, Shawn Taylor, Walidah Imarisha, Amir Kadar

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

The anthology is available here for download, and the YouTube video of authors reading excerpts is embedded.

Wakanda Dream Lab and PolicyLink present a storyworld of safety and freedom in a future without prisons and policing.

While debates about “defunding” raise the question of what a new public safety system might look like, authors and artists are showing us what is possible through speculative fiction. In the spirit of visionary fiction, we convened future-bending Black storytellers for a Black Speculative Writer's Room Project, and together, we created an anthology of freedom dream stories exploring a world after the abolition of …

Health Implications Of Incarceration And Reentry On Returning Citizens: A Qualitative Examination Of Black Men’S Experiences In A Northeastern City, Jason M. Williams, Sean K. Wilson, Carrie Bergeson

Department of Justice Studies Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

While a great deal of research captures the lived experiences of Black men as they navigate through the criminal legal system and onto reentry, very little research is grounded in how those processes are directly connected to their health. Although some research argues that mass incarceration is a determinant of poor health, there is a lack of qualitative analyses from the perspective of Black men. Black men face distinct pathways that lead them into the criminal legal system, and these same pathways await them upon reentry. This study aims to examine the health implications associated with incarceration and reentry of …

Exploring Cultural Awareness: Whiteness, Inclusive Science Initiative Program

Inclusive Science Initiative Program

What does it mean to be white? Whiteness, as with all other races, is a social construct. There is nothing that inherently identifies a person as white, yet when we use the word, we have a certain collective understanding of what it means. Whiteness has generally been associated with people of European origin but has not always collectively represented all Europeans. There are other ethnic groups with light-colored skin who are labeled white in some context but not others. So, what makes a person white and what does this mean in our society?

You Are Resilient: Trauma-Informed, Strengths-Based Treatment For Low-Ses, Urban Youth, Courtney Molina

Dissertations

The focus in this review was to explore the benefits and optimal use of trauma-informed, strengths-based care for the therapeutic treatment of low-socioeconomic status (SES), urban youth. Specific focus was given to evidence-based research on the treatment of emotional and behavioral dysregulation among low-SES, urban youth. The review was guided by the following research questions: How can emotional and behavioral dysregulation be symptoms of trauma among low-SES, urban youth; What makes trauma-informed and strengths-based care optimal for the treatment of low-SES, urban youth with dysregulation; and What are clear guidelines for providing trauma-informed, strengths-based care to low-SES, urban youth with …

Exploring Cultural Awareness: Latinx/Hispanic, Inclusive Science Initiative Program

Inclusive Science Initiative Program

This informal guide was designed to help acknowledge culture change when opening a dialogue between Latinx or Hispanic and non-Latinx. The items below were assembled by Latinx and Hispanic members of the University of South Dakota community to help encourage non-Latinx to learn some “Dos” and “Don’ts”.

Kuasa Atas Ruang Pembebasan’: The Resilience Ofwomen In Sasak Culture, Lucky Wijayanti

International Review of Humanities Studies

The Sasak tribe on Lombok island - West Nusa Tenggara, have traditional values and are applied through the social structure of their communities in daily life. Some existing customary values place women in irreplaceable positions. Even so, the existence of financial needs makes them work abroad as laborers, which indirectly results in the occurrence of divorce and early marriage. This is a problem for Sasak women in terms of survival in the Sasak culture. An ethnographic approach derived from Malinowski, the opinion of Svasek, and the value system framework from Kluckhohn are used in this study. This research concludes that …