Freedom and Justice Institute (FAJI)

See our 2025 Fellow Application below

The Freedom and Justice Institute (FAJI) aims to facilitate and support liberatory study and knowledge production by university and independent scholars whose work advances movements for freedom and justice. Under the leadership of Professors Davarian Baldwin, Cathy Cohen, Lorgia García Peña, Barbara Ransby, and Ananya Roy, with Dr. Saudi García as Executive Director, FAJI is a space of collectivity and community within, against, and beyond the confines and corporate values of institutions such as the U.S. university.

There are many urgent areas of resistance and contestation in our society, but the struggle over ideas and the right to dissent, especially on college campuses, is critical as it is intimately linked to larger and global struggles.

Apply to our 2025 Fellow Cohort

FAJI Fellows will be early career scholars whose work aligns with SSJ’s framework of Abolition, Reparations, Investment, and Safety (ARIS). Prospective FAJI Fellows are on the frontlines of creating and expanding liberated zones of study and struggle and therefore may be at risk of repression. Starting in January 2025 and lasting a year, the fellowship comes with a stipend of $20,000, an additional $5,000 to support each Fellow’s project, and travel resources for an international in-person gathering. Proposed projects need to have an actional outcome, such as developing a framework for movement work, building a data set that can be used to sharpen movement organizing work, detailing the vision for a new formation, identifying the building blocks for an innovative political campaign, among others.

Eligibility 

  • U.S. based University and independent scholars working in service to justice and freedom movement work. 

  • Early-career scholars, by which we mean those who completed their terminal or most recent degree 5 years or less ago. 

  • We will also consider doctoral students who have advanced to candidacy, but this is not meant to be a dissertation fellowship. 

  • University and independent scholars whose work advances the SSJ framework of Abolition, Reparations, Investment, and Safety (ARIS). 

  • University and independent scholars who are actively involved with, or actively accompany, social movements for justice and freedom and who are particularly interested in the university and knowledge production as a terrain of struggle.

Expectations 

  • Each FAJI Fellow is expected to propose and work on a specific project that advances, disseminates and builds on the ARIS framework. To this end, each Fellow must have the capacity to receive and utilize fellowship funds. 

  • FAJI Fellows will form a cohort and each FAJI Fellow is expected to engage in collective study of the ARIS framework and attend virtual monthly meetings. Additionally, they will rotate through the convening of such meetings and build connections across the various projects. 

  • FAJI Fellows are expected to organize and attend an in-person gathering, most likely one at an international location, in order to build connections between movement work here in the U.S. and movement work occurring at key global nodes of struggle. 

Application Deadline and Requirements 

  • In order to apply, please submit a 2-3 page statement expressing your interest in this fellowship and describing your proposed project.  

  • In your application statement, please explain how your proposed project aligns with, and will build upon, SSJ’s ongoing work to build Abolition, Repair, Investment and Safety in higher education and how you will utilize fellowship funds to carry out your proposed project. For more information about the SSJ’s ARIS framework, please visit this page.

  • Please also submit a full CV and the names, emails and phone numbers of 3 references (please do not ask them for letters). 

  • Application deadline is November 15, 2024 at 5 pm PT.

For more information, email us at faji@scholarsforsocialjustice.com