Rapoport Center Human Rights Scholars

The application cycle for 2024-25 Human Rights Scholars is now open. Please apply by midnight on Monday, May 20, 2024.

The Bernard and Audre Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice at the University of Texas School of Law is now accepting scholarship applications from UT law students to serve as Human Rights Scholars for the 2024–25 academic year. Human Rights Scholars help advance the Rapoport Center’s human rights programming, promote connections with UT Austin’s interdisciplinary human rights community, and provide support for the Center’s projects.

The Rapoport Center operates as a vibrant, interdisciplinary hub for human rights and social justice research, teaching, networking, and advocacy. Among its projects it houses the Sissy Farenthold Fund for Peace and Social Justice. The Center and Fund regularly convene workshops and public events that bring together academics and activists; engage in research and publication of scholarship and reports; and support faculty and student research, creative work, and advocacy.

The Center plans to award three scholarships, at least one of which will be dedicated to work in reproductive justice. Each Human Rights Scholar will receive a $6,000 scholarship and spend an average of 10-12 hours/week at the Center over the fall and spring academic semesters. Rising 2Ls and 3Ls, as well as L.L.M. students, are eligible to apply.

As part of their scholarship with the Rapoport Center, Human Rights Scholars may:

• provide legal and scholarly research support to Center staff;
• serve on an editorial board for the Center’s Working Paper Series;
• help plan an academic conference, workshop, or speaker series, including the Center’s Fall Colloquium on Reproductive Justice, Criminal Law, and the Carceral State, and attend Rapoport Center events
• provide new ideas for Rapoport Center programs;
• collaborate with the Rapoport Center’s partners on and off campus;
• network with graduate affiliates and alumni;
• identify professional opportunities in human rights and social justice and publicize them for students and alumni; and
• provide mentorship to undergraduate students and first year law students interested in human rights and global justice.

At least one Human Rights Scholar will be designated as the Sissy Farenthold Scholar in Reproductive Justice. The Reproductive Justice Scholar will support Rapoport Center staff affiliated with the Sissy Farenthold Reproductive Justice Defense Project. They will engage in research, advocacy, and programming at the intersection of criminal law and reproductive rights, with a particular focus on over-criminalized communities in Texas.

Meet our current scholars