Center for Racial and Economic Justice
The Center for Racial and Economic Justice (CREJ) works to advance equity and justice through legal education, research and scholarship, and academic-community partnerships and collaborations. Through its annual Wiley Manuel Visiting Scholar and Professorship, CREJ hosts leading legal scholars whose work has been recognized as seminal the fields of racial and economic justice. The 2024-2025 Wiley Manuel Visiting Scholar and Professor is Cheryl Harris, the Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Foundation Chair in Civil Rights and Civil Liberties at UCLA Law. As a hub for racial and economic justice activities at the law school, and with the goal of enriching the intellectual community at UC Law SF, CREJ also supports and hosts a two-year Visiting Assistant Professorship for junior scholars developing their research, teaching portfolios, and seeking to enter legal academia. The 2024-2026 C. Keith Wingate Visiting Assistant Professor of Law is Natalia Ramírez Lee.
To achieve its mission, CREJ works collaboratively with UC Law SF faculty, UC Law SF students, and local and national organizations, as well as other race and law centers across the country. A core element of CREJ’s leadership at UC Law SF is the contextualization of conventional doctrinal course instruction within a historical and structural context of racism and inequality and course offerings that center critical perspectives of race, identity, and inequity. To address pressing field issues and challenges and facilitate dialogue focused on racial and economic injustice, CREJ convenes scholars, practitioners, and community leaders each year for conferences, symposium, and roundtables.
CREJ Annual Report 2023-2024
Faculty Co-Directors
Alina Ball
Professor of Law, Bion M. Gregory Chair in Business Law, and Co-Director of the Center for Racial and Economic Justice
View Alina Ball’s Profile
Thalia González
Professor of Law and Harry & Lillian Hastings Research Chair, Co-Director of the Center for Racial and Economic Justice
View Thalia González’s Profile
Shauna Marshall
The Honorable Raymond L. Sullivan Professor of Law, Co-Director of the Center on Racial and Economic Justice
View Shauna Marshall’s Profile
Meet the CREJ Faculty Affiliates:
Ming H. Chen
Professor and Harry & Lillian Hastings Research Chair, Director of the Center on Race, Immigration, Citizenship and Equality
View Ming H. Chen’s Profile
Karen Musalo
Professor and Chair in International Law, Director of the Center for Gender & Refugee Studies
View Karen Musalo’s Profile
Christine Natoli
Kazan McClain Partners’ Foundation Professor of Practice
View Christine Natoli’s Profile
Natalia Ramírez Lee
C. Keith Wingate Visiting Assistant Professor at the Center for Racial and Economic Justice (CREJ)
View Natalia Ramírez Lee’s Profile
Reuel Schiller
The Honorable Roger J. Traynor Chair and Professor of Law
View Reuel Schiller’s Profile
Current Student Researchers
Program Information
The following are UC Law SF courses that explicitly center issues of race and subordination in their examination of the law and legal systems. This list is not exhaustive. We encourage current students to consult the Course Catalog for additional offerings related to issues of racial and economic justice.
- American Indian Law
- American Legal Education: A Critical Examination
- Asian Pacific Americans and the Law
- Citizenism: Race and Immigration
- Citizenship and Equality: Interdisciplinary Perspectives
- Civil Rights Theory and Practicum
- Community Economic Development Seminar
- Community Group Advocacy & Social Change Lawyering Clinic
- Constitutional History: Race and Civil Rights
- Critical Race Theory
- Education Law and Policy and Restorative Justice
- Employment Discrimination
- Federal Indian Law
- Individual Representation Clinic
- Immigrants’ Rights Clinic
- Immigration Law
- Latinx and the Law
- Movement Lawyering
- Race, Racism, and American Law
- Race, Sexuality, and the Law
- Refugee and Human Rights Clinic
- Refugee Law & Policy
- Reproductive Justice
- Social Enterprise & Economic Empowerment Clinic
- Tribal Law
Upcoming Events
CREJ – Racial Capitalism Symposium
Join leading legal theorists and scholars to advance understanding in how racial capitalism connects across and within historical legal foundations and into contemporary expressions of racial and economic inequality. Register […]
Past Events
Wiley Manuel Lecture featuring Professor Scott Cummings
Join us for a conversation with Professor Scott Cummings exploring the role of law in reimagining what economic justice should look like in American cities profoundly divided by race and class. Our understanding of how law has shaped structural economic and racial inequality at the local level—and how city residents mobilize law as a tool to challenge this inequality—informs our ability to redesign law to address fundamental problems of housing insecurity and labor precarity, while ensuring the sustained and meaningful participation of communities in development and planning decisions that fundamentally affect their lives. This inquiry requires us to also deepen our substantive and practical understanding of the role of movement lawyers in economic and racial justice efforts.
The Racial Muslim
The Center for Racial and Economic Justice and UC Law Constitutional Law Quarterly welcome Professor of Law and Chancellor’s Social Justice Scholar, Sahar Aziz, in conversation with Professor Evelyn Rangel-Medina, to discuss her new book, The Racial Muslim: When Racism Quashes Religious Freedom, which explores the racialization of religion in the United States. Muslims have experienced a long history of exclusion and discrimination in the United States. For example, Muslims were formally ineligible for U.S. citizenship, which was historically reserved only for “free white persons.” Professor Aziz examines how religious freedom has always been racially circumscribed in the United States and explains why that context is significant to understanding contemporary events such as Trump’s “Muslim Ban” executive order.
Fine-Free Justice: Lessons From Across the Movements and Advancing Change Now
The Center for Racial and Economic Justice welcomed scholars, civil rights and education attorneys, policy advocates, community based organizations, and youth leaders from across the country to discuss legal and policy advocacy to reduce and restrict educational fines and fees, including civil and criminal fines and penalties specific to school attendance, truancy, and conduct. The event features two engaging panels and a roundtable working session in which panelists and attendees explored synergies between advocacy between systems, examined emerging local and state-level interventions, and strategized for collective action at local and national levels.
From Prop 209 to Prop 16: Historical, Legal and Activist Perspectives on Affirmative Action
Californians have endured a statewide ban on race- and gender-based affirmative action policies since the passage of Proposition 209, which is widely recognized for its devastating impact on advancing racial justice in labor and education. In November 2020, Proposition 16 would have restored affirmative action in CA. This panel discusses the legacies of Proposition 209 and the promise Proposition 16 provided.
Racial Health Disparities: Economic Injustice as an Underlying Condition of Covid
COVID-19 has deeply affected communities of color, who are disproportionately essential workers and whose labor conditions and economic status constrain their ability to protect themselves and their families during the pandemic. Compounding these acute challenges are disproportionate rates of underlying health conditions which are connected to unequal social conditions over the lifespan, including poverty and racism. Panelists describe the evidence base linking economic and racial inequality to health inequity, the ways in which COVID compounds those longstanding inequities, and the role of law as both a positive and negative force in addressing them.
Racial Health Disparities: Police Violence as an Underlying Health Condition
The UCSF/UC Law SF Consortium along with the UC Law SF Center for Racial and Economic Justice are pleased to announce that part two of our Health Equity Webinar Series is now available as a recording. The event, “Racial Health Disparities: Police Violence as an Underlying Health Condition,” took place on Wednesday, January 13th via zoom, as a moderated panel discussion. Attendee questions are integrated into the discussion.
Black UC Law SF (Hastings) Speaks
Black UC Law SF (Hastings) Speaks is a project of the UC Law SF Center for Racial and Economic Justice (CREJ). The series is modeled after the StoryCorps podcasts and aims to preserve and present, with dignity, authentic stories of Black experiences within the UC Law SF community.
