Law and Racial Justice Center

Our Vision

The Law and Racial Justice Center brings together New Haveners, Yale students, staff, and faculty, local government officials, and local and national experts to imagine and implement projects that advance racial justice. We bridge theory and practice to build more just communities, with a particular focus on New Haven.

We aspire to work together in community, collaborate across disciplines, and create opportunities for student-centered experiential learning. Doing that, we believe, will produce life-affirming solutions to our most pressing challenges of systemic racism.

Our Projects

Individual Mobility and Community Wealth Building

The Law School Access Program (A2LS) is an innovative law school pipeline program for first-generation, low-income, and underrepresented minority students from New Haven and Connecticut. Applications for our fourth cohort are now closed.

New Visions for Public Safety/Community Well-Being

The mechanisms we currently rely on for public safety—police, prosecution, and prisons—cause enormous harm. But what will keep us safe? The Law and Racial Justice Center engages this question through projects that promote government- and community-led responses that are non-punitive and strengthen communal ties. Our work is currently focused on restorative justice practices and community support for neighbors who are confined in jails or prisons or returning home after incarceration.