Social Justice and Social Policy Program

Image of Noam Shurin and Madeline Bisgyer

Madeline Bisgyer ’20 (left) and Noaem Shurin ’19, students in the Spring 2019 Advocacy for Policy Change ENACT course.
A group of students stand with Angela Davis

2019 'DEIS Impact student organizers with Angela Davis '65

Rebecca Walker

Rebecca Walker, founder of the Third Wave Fund for Social Justice, speaks at 'DEIS Impact in 2017

Jonathan Goldman, '19, and Victoria St. Jean, '19, are co-founders of The Right to Immigration Institute in Waltham.

Jonathan Goldman and Victoria St. Jean, Meehan Social Justice-In-Action Grant 2017 awardees, are co-founders of The Right to Immigration Institute.

Nadia Alawa speaks at a podium with a photograph projected behind her

Nadia Alawa, 2018 ’DEIS Impact Keynote speaker and founder of NuDay Syria

Martin Luther King Jr. sits and talks with Brandeis students in 1957

Martin Luther King Jr. talks with Brandeis students, 1957

The program in social justice and social policy (SJSP) is open to all Brandeis undergraduates who entered Brandeis prior to June 1, 2022. Students who enter Brandeis after June 1, 2022 will not be admitted.

Creative thinking about complex social problems

The Social Justice and Social Policy (SJSP) Program links the university's commitment to social justice with the academic curriculum. The program provides a common place for students in all disciplines to engage with issues of justice and equity. Our curriculum examines the essential connections between social values and practical policy.

The concern with social justice speaks to the core educational commitments of Brandeis. This program does not seek to promote a particular ideological agenda, but rather to spark creative thinking about complex social problems. It carries the search for norms and principles into the wider arena of practical experience. By providing models for critical reflection, it challenges students to articulate their own value commitments in a spirit of constructive debate.