The only Vanderbilt Law journal with an explicit social justice mission, the Vanderbilt Social Justice Reporter ("VSJR") is envisioned as a national go-to resource for social justice-oriented scholars, practitioners, students and community members, with content spanning intersectional issues of law and social equity. VSJR will offer a unique mix of high-quality scholarship presented through long-form articles, short essays and opinion pieces, as well as contributions on current events and legal debates with direct and immediate policy relevance. The first round of publications are expected during the 2023-2024 academic year.
A two-part event focused on the legacy of voting rights in the South, its current state of affairs, and strategies for ensuring a full and unequivocal right to a fair vote for Black and Brown residents.
The Vanderbilt Social Justice Reporter strives to publish scholarship that will challenge the “neutral” tenets of the law by elevating traditionally minimized or excluded stories and empowering readers from all backgrounds to engage in the pursuit of social justice and civil rights.
Vanderbilt Social Justice Reporter takes its name from the storied Race Relations Law Reporter (“RRLR"), a pioneering social justice journal launched at Vanderbilt Law in 1956 and funded by a grant from the Ford Foundation. RRLR was published until 1972 to wide readership. During the 2021-2022 academic year, five students worked to lay the groundwork for a re-envisioned social justice journal at Vanderbilt Law. The following year, students selected for a VSJR Working Group continued to build the new journal's infrastructure. Vanderbilt Social Justice Reporter officially launched as an operational academic journal in August 2023.
As a digital-only publication, one of VSJR’s unique aims is to publish solutions, best practices, and think pieces in a timelier manner than permitted by the traditional legal scholarship publication process. Topics related to social justice are varied, multi-faceted, and constantly evolving as national attitudes about racial justice, voting rights, reproductive rights, LGBTQIA+ inclusivity, gender justice, economic and environmental inequality, and other issues shift over time. As such, social justice discussion, in particular, requires prompt and consistent engagement. VSJR is committed to providing a dedicated forum for these discussions and for social justice, civil rights, and public interest scholarship under the expert guidance of a Vanderbilt Law faculty panel.