Opportunities for Students: Graduate Students

The Bernard and Audre Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice at the University of Texas School of Law is proud to administer the Zipporah B. Wiseman Prize for Scholarship on Law, Literature, and Justice. This international and multidisciplinary writing competition is made possible by donations from the friends, family, and colleagues of the late Zipporah Batshaw Wiseman, in honor of her important work at the intersection of law and literature.

We invite UT graduate students from all disciplines whose research pertains to human rights and/or social justice to be part of our graduate student affiliate program.

This interdisciplinary writing competition on international human rights and gender awards a $1,250 prize. It honors the work of Audre Rapoport, who advocated for women in the United States and internationally, particularly on issues of reproductive health.

The Rapoport Center is currently soliciting papers for its Working Paper Series (WPS). We encourage submissions from scholars of all disciplines as well as from activists and advocates.

The Rapoport Center invites UT graduate and professional students to serve on the editorial committee for its Working Paper Series (WPS). The WPS facilitates the editing and publication of papers, works-in-progress, and other writing projects which address human rights and social justice.

The Bernard and Audre Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice, housed at the University of Texas at Austin School of Law, is seeking a graduate student summer fellow to work half-time (20 hours/week) supporting the Center’s work on its thematic priorities, including reproductive justice, environmental and climate justice, peace, and the gendered and racialized dimensions of work and livelihoods.

The Rapoport Center offers grants to support summer fieldwork by UT graduate students on two of the thematic priorities of the Rapoport Center’s Sissy Farenthold Fund for Peace and Social Justice: environmental justice and peace (or their intersection).

The Graduate Affiliates of the Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice are excited to invite UT-Austin graduate and professional students to participate in our Spring 2026 interdisciplinary workshop. This event provides a unique opportunity for students to receive substantive feedback on their scholarly work from peers and faculty working in other disciplines. We welcome work-in-progress submissions related to human rights and social justice (see below), including class papers, draft articles, thesis or dissertation chapters, and other scholarly projects aimed at refinement and publication.

Law students and other graduate students in the Human Rights Clinic advocate on behalf of victims of human rights abuses.

This list of human rights organizations, while by no means comprehensive, can be used as a starting point for students to search for opportunities around the world. Organizations where former Rapoport Center Fellows have worked are marked.

The University of Texas School of Law offers a number of courses and clinics throughout the year in the area of human rights.

NYU's Center for Human Rights & Global Justice maintains a page for job postings and similar opportunities in the human rights field that may be of interest to current students as well as postgraduates.

This innovative concentration provides students with a robust, critical, and comparative foundation in both human rights and constitutional law. It offers students a comprehensive understanding of contemporary human rights practices, including uses of constitutional law, in both domestic and international settings.

The Rapoport Center sponsors collaborative working groups initiated by our affiliated faculty that research and explore various human rights topics. These groups are comprised of faculty and students from diverse disciplines across campus. We invite you to join a working group and become part of the conversation!