Justice Matters

What is critical race theory and why is it under attack? On this episode of Justice Matters, host Sushma Raman discusses critical race theory with Dr. Victor Ray, Carr Center Fellow and F. Wendell Miller Associate Professor at the University of Iowa. Together they explore the related topics of structural racism and intersectionality, and how race shapes social processes typically considered race neutral. Dr. Ray is also a Nonresident Fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution. As a public scholar, he has published commentary in the Washington Post, Harvard Business Review, Newsweek, and the Boston Review.

What is black witnessing, and how does it connect to movements for racial equity and justice? Can capturing a moment shape a movement? On this episode of Justice Matters, host Sushma Raman speaks with Dr. Allissa Richardson about the power of communication on social and racial justice. Dr. Richardson is an Associate Professor of Journalism at USC Annenberg School. She researches how African Americans use social and mobile media to produce innovative forms of journalism, especially in times of crisis. She’s the author of “Bearing Witness While Black: African Americans, Smartphones and the New Protest #Journalism,” which explores the lives of 15 journalist activists who have documented the Black Lives Matter movement using only their smartphones and Twitter. Dr. Richardson is a Carr Center Fellow for the coming academic year.

What is the responsibility of businesses to uphold human rights? What is the role of civil society to hold businesses accountable? And how well is the human rights movement equipped to deal with the emerging challenges of the digital age? In this episode of Justice Matters, host Sushma Raman discusses these questions with Mike Posner, Professor at the Stern School of Business and director for the Center for Business and Human Rights at NYU. Posner served in the Obama Administration from 2009-2013 as Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Democracy Human Rights and Labor, and from 1978-2009 Posner led Human Rights First.

This month on Justice Matters, host Sushma Raman talks with Dara Kay Cohen, a Ford Foundation Associate Professor of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. Her research spans the field of international relations including: international security, civil war and the dynamics of violence, and gender and conflict. On this episode they discuss rape during contemporary civil wars, research methods for collecting qualitative data about sexual violence and the ethics of research, her findings about how gender equality could help to avoid civil war, and how documenting war crimes in Ukraine may lead to accountability after the war. Cohen explores these topics further in her award winning books, Rape During Civil War and Lynching and Local Justice: Legitimacy and Accountability in Weak States.

This month on Justice Matters, host Sushma Raman talks with Dr. Yanilda María González, an Assistant Professor of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School who researches police violence and how it relates to democracy and citizenship, with a focus on Latin America. In this conversation they discuss how to facilitate having dialogue around police reform with people from different backgrounds, authoritarianism and policing, civil society’s role in holding politicians and police accountable, race and how policing determines how you have access to rights, and police corruption and how it relates to police violence in both the United States and Latin America.

How does a leader strive for social justice for their community and country? Join us this month on Justice Matters as host Sushma Raman talks with Dr. Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, the former United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of UN Women from 2013-2021, and the first woman to hold the position of Deputy President of South Africa. From her background as a teacher in South Africa and as an active part of the anti-aparteid struggle, through to her positions in the first democratically elected government of South Africa and later the UN, Dr. Mlambl-Ngcuka discusses her work fighting for the rights of women and children throughout her multifaceted career.

This month on Justice Matters, host Sushma Raman talks with Dr. Sima Samar about the situation in Afghanistan, the status of women and girls in the country, and the role and responsibility of the international community. Dr. Samar is a member of the UN Secretary General’s High-Level Panel on Internal Displacement and has held the positions of Special Envoy for the President of Afghanistan, State Minister for Human Rights and International Affairs, Chairperson of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commision, and Minister of Women’s Affairs as one of only two women in the transition government. She is a fellow at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy and a Scholar at Risk at Harvard.

For this month’s episode of Justice Matters, we’re digging into our archives to present a special episode for Black History Month. Featuring excerpts from three conversations with a range of speakers from academia and activism, our guests discuss the historical legacy of enslavement, the periods of progress followed by rollbacks, the promise and peril of the current moment, and how we build more inclusive and just societies for the future. Join our host Sushma Raman as she speaks with Wade Henderson, interim CEO of the Leadership Conference for Civil and Human Rights, Dr. Keisha Blain, award-winning historian and author of “Set the World on Fire: Black Nationalist Women and the Struggle for Global Freedom,” and Dr. Megan Ming Francis, author of “Civil Rights and the Making of the Modern American State.”

How does the country’s history affect the present — and how can we envision a more just future for everyone? Join us this month on Justice Matters as host Sushma Raman talks with Dr. Khalil Gibran Muhammad, a noted historian and professor at Harvard Kennedy School, as they discuss the legacy of slavery; the intersection of racism, economic inequality, and criminal justice; and the importance of creating anti-racist institutions. Dr. Muhammad directs the Institutional Anti-Racism and Accountability Project at the Ash Center at Harvard Kennedy School, is the former director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture — a division of the NY Public Library and the world's leading library and archive of global Black history — and is the award-winning author of The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America.

How do the values being built into AI affect our public and private lives now and into the future? What is the importance of a global human rights framework in driving discussions around the democratization of AI? Join us this month on Justice Matters as host Sushma Raman talks with Dr. Annette Zimmermann, political philosopher at the University of York, and Technology and Human RIghts fellow at the Carr Center. They discuss many of the ideas in Dr. Zimmermann’s forthcoming book, The Algorithmic is Political, where she argues that we should resist the view that AI is value neutral. In this conversation she lays out the scope and nature of algorithmic injustices, models for setting an agenda on regulating AI, and what it means to democratize AI in a climate rife with misinformation.

Human rights defenders are increasingly the targets of repression by states and private organizations. Join us this month on the Justice Matters podcast as host Sushma Raman talks with Nicholas Opiyo, Ugandan human rights lawyer and fellow at the Carr Center, about campaigning for civil rights and political freedoms in Uganda, and the clampdown on freedom of speech and freedom of press, as well as the rights of LGBTQ+ communities in the country.

How are new information technologies used in both civic engagement and social control in countries around the world? What do human rights have to do with the global information environment? Join us this month on Justice Matters as host Sushma Raman talks with Phil Howard, Professor of Internet Studies at Oxford University and a Fellow at the Carr Center, about his research on how digital media impacts political life around the world.

How do democracies die? What lessons can we learn from the past as we seek to build more democratic societies and participatory public spheres? Join us this month on Justice Matters as host Sushma Raman talks with Steve Levitsky, Professor of Government at Harvard University, Director of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, and co-author with Daniel Ziblatt of the bestselling book “How Democracies Die”. They discuss the state of democracy in the world today, weak and informal institutions, and authoritarianism and how we can combat it.

How can we ensure accountability when international criminal law is violated? How do we approach seeking justice for past atrocities? And in an era of widespread disinformation, what happens when people lack trust in the very purveyors of justice? Judge Chile Eboe-Osuji, former President of the ICC, joins host Sushma Raman to discuss accountability and justice in the global arena.

Can one movie make a difference in a nation's trajectory? Released in 1915, The Birth of a Nation was the first film to be screened in the White House. Mired in racists stereotypes, the film is credited with the resurgence of the KKK. In this month's episode of Justice Matters, Economist Desmond Ang joins host Sushma Raman to discuss the impact of media on racial hate.

How do science and technology affect rights, equity, and justice? When are techno-solutions inadequate in addressing societal problems? In this month's episode of Justice Matters, host Sushma Raman talks with Professor Sheila Jasanoff, a pioneer in the social sciences exploring the role of science and technology in the law, politics, and policy of modern democracies. Join them as they discuss "technologies of humility," and how we might build more participatory methods of public policy problem solving.

President and CEO of the Southern Poverty Law Center, Margaret Huang, joins host Sushma Raman to discuss the Center's tremendous growth, along with its challenges in the road ahead.

Regan Ralph, President and CEO for the Fund for Global Human Rights, joins host Sushma Raman to discuss the challenges, triumphs, and complexities of leading an international human rights organization.

Join host Sushma Raman and co-author William Schulz as they reflect on past, present, and future human rights frameworks, and discuss their latest book, "The Coming Good Society."

Wade Henderson, interim president of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and The Leadership Conference Education Fund, joins host Sushma Raman to discuss the multigenerational and multiracial fight against systemic racism in the Unites States.