The Bernard and Audre Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice, a vibrant, interdisciplinary center located at the University of Texas School of Law, is pleased to announce new Scholarships in Human Rights and Global Justice for 3 to 6 UT Law Students during the 2023-2024 academic year. Since its founding in 2004, the Rapoport Center has served as a focal point for critical, interdisciplinary analysis and practice of human rights and social justice.
The Bernard and Audre Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice is seeking a current UT graduate or professional student to serve as its Graduate Human Rights Scholar for the 2023–24 academic year. The Rapoport Center serves as a vibrant, interdisciplinary institute at the intersection of academics and advocacy. The Graduate Human Rights Scholar will be responsible for coordinating the activities of Rapoport Center affiliated graduate students network; they will also work with Rapoport Center staff to coordinate interdisciplinary activities in human rights. The Center is particularly interested in Scholars who can support our work on our thematic priorities, including reproductive justice, environmental and climate justice, peace, and the gendered and racialized dimensions of work and livelihoods.
Human Rights Scholars work to advance the Center’s human rights programming, promote connections with UT-Austin’s interdisciplinary human rights community, and provide support for the Center’s projects. One Human Rights Scholar will be designated as the Sissy Farenthold Scholar in Reproductive Justice.
The Sissy Farenthold Scholars in Reproductive Justice for 2022-2023
As promising leaders in reproductive rights and justice, Sissy Farenthold Scholars in Reproductive Justice play a vital role in the daily life and future of the Rapoport Center. Scholars provide research and advocacy support on issues related to reproductive rights, and work closely with the Rapoport Center's programs and planning over the course of the academic year.
The Rapoport Center offers fall, spring, and summer internships to undergraduates who are interested in working in the field of human rights and social justice. Interns play an important role at the Rapoport Center, and support various initiatives depending on their backgrounds, interests, and the needs of the Center.
The Barbara Harlow Internship in Human Rights & Social Justice honors the life and work of Barbara Harlow (1948-2017), who held the Louann and Larry Temple Centennial Professor of English Literature at the University of Texas. She was a committed colleague, friend, and mentor to countless students, activists, and intellectuals. As a collaboration between the Rapoport Center and the Bridging Disciplines Programs (BDP), the internship aims to introduce BDP students to Harlow’s scholarship and activism, and to encourage them to imagine future trajectories for her work.
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. At present, we are particularly interested in papers in line with the Rapoport Center’s current thematic focus on the future of work.
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.
The Rapoport Center invites UT law and graduate students to serve on the editorial committee for its Working Paper Series (WPS). The WPS is dedicated to interdisciplinary and critical dialogue about international human rights law and discourse.
The Rapoport Center offers summer funding and placement assistance to Texas Law students interested in doing transnational or international work on issues of human rights or social justice.
The Charles Moyer Human Rights Fellowship honors the life and work of Charles Moyer, whose professional career has been devoted to the international protection of human rights, and who was the first Secretary of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.
The Bernard and Audre Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice, housed at the University of Texas at Austin School of Law, is seeking 1-2 graduate student summer fellow(s) to work at least 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 for Human Rights and Justice invites UT-Austin graduate and professional students to receive feedback on their work at a Spring 2023 inter-disciplinary workshop. The workshop will connect students to peers working in other disciplines as well as to an inter-disciplinary group of faculty members who will give substantive feedback on scholarly work. Workshop participation requires a work-in-progress relating to human rights or social justice, broadly defined (see below). The work may be a class paper, draft article or book chapter, thesis or dissertation section or chapter, or other scholarly projects that participants intend to refine and publish.
Law students in the Immigration Clinic gain hands-on experience representing vulnerable low-income immigrants from all over the world before the immigration and federal courts and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The Immigration Clinic also offers annual undergraduate legal internships for students considering law school and/or interested working in the fields of immigration and human rights.
2013 Rapoport Center Summer Fellow Elizabeth Nguyen (second row, second from left) with judges, associate legal officers, and interns of the Karadzic team of Trial Chamber III on the terrace of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia
The Rapoport Center facilitates judicial internship placements for Texas Law students with international courts and tribunals, including the Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, and the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia. Students may receive funding or academic credit for these internships.
Students in the Civil Rights Clinic, which was established through the Rapoport Center, represent low-income clients in a range of civil rights matters relating to abusive law enforcement practices, prisoners’ rights, discrimination in many forms, and freedoms of speech, religion, and association.
Students in the Transnational Worker Rights Clinic, which was established through the Rapoport Center, represent low-income transnational migrant workers in cases to recover unpaid wages, and also engage in advocacy projects asserting the rights of workers in here and abroad.
As part of a five-year project exploring the relationship between economic inequality and human rights, the Rapoport Center is offering summer fellowships for UT law and graduate students to intern with organizations, globally and locally, working on issues of human rights and inequality— particularly (but not limited to) the areas of economic justice, labor, and natural resource governance.
This graduate concentration trains students in the field of human rights by providing a multidisciplinary array of courses that consider the history, theory, rhetoric, and doctrine of human rights.
The Undergraduate Concentration in Human Rights & Social Justice, offered in collaboration with the Bridging Disciplines Program (BDP), introduces students to the interdisciplinary study and practice of human rights at home and around the world.
The Human Rights Student Advisory Council (HRSAC) offers undergraduate organizations working in human rights and social justice the opportunity to connect with the Rapoport Center, network with other like-minded organizations, and engage in collaborative human rights and social justice advocacy on the UT campus.
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 Human Rights Clinic, established through the Rapoport Center, brings together an interdisciplinary group of law and graduate students in a course that incorporates both classroom study and hands-on participation in human rights projects and cases.
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.
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 rising 2L or 3L law student from any U.S. law school to support the Center’s new reproductive justice project at the intersection of criminal law and reproductive rights. The project aims to ensure quality legal resources for people criminally charged or investigated in Texas based on pregnancy outcomes. The Reproductive Justice Legal Fellow will work under the direction of reproductive rights attorney Blake Rocap and alongside Rapoport Center faculty, staff, and students.
Adriana Corral (MFA candidate, University of Texas) discusses her artwork on the femicides in Ciudad Juárez during a workshop organized by the Rapoport Center's Human Rights & the Arts Working Group, January 2013
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!
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.
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.
