Justice Studies

Hello and Welcome...

...to our department web site. Our strength as an academic program comes from the resourceful combination of back-grounds in our teaching and research. Our faculty have advanced degrees in law, criminal justice, criminology, history, religion, ethics, theology, and sociology. Consequently, we are a broadly focused group of faculty, staff, and students who are concerned with justice in its many dimensions.

As an undergraduate major, Justice Studies is an excellent choice because it offers a variety of challenging and well-taught courses on various aspects of justice. This major prepares you for services in various departments of justice in the United States, as well as within international justice systems. You may also use this major to prepare for law school, teaching, and graduate work and research in many fields. Our department promotes student community engagement in the greater Chicago communities through internships.

Please use the links on this page to explore our department. If you have additional questions, please contact us by email at: Justice-Studies@ neiu.edu, or by telephone: 773-442-4790. We would be more than happy to assist you.

Justice Studies Adds Two New

Instructors

Justice Studies is thrilled to welcome to two new Instructors to our distinguished faculty for Spring Semester 2012: Theresa Amato and Heidi Truax.

Theresa Amato is a noted lawyer and community activist, who for two decades has been on the forefront of advancing civic rights, training lawyers and citizen advocates, obtaining access to government information, reforming elections, and influencing public policy. To name but a few of her many accomplishments, she is a graduate of Harvard University, where she was named a Wasserstein Public Interest Law Fellow, a Fellow at the Institute of Politics of the John F. Kennedy School of Government, and served as Editor for the Harvard Political Review. Theresa earned her Juris Doctorate at the New York University School of Law, and served on the Executive Board of the New York University Law Review. She has authored or co-authored articles in the Harvard Law Record, National Civic Review, Stanford Law & Policy Review, Yale Journal of International Law, and was a contributor to the ACLU's Guide to Open Government. She was the founder and Executive Director for the Citizen Advocacy Center in Chicago, served as President of Citizen Works, and was a litigator for the Public Citizen Litigation Group in Washington, DC. Theresa possesses a unique civic and political perspective gained from her experience as the National Campaign Manager for both the 2000 and 2004 presidential campaigns of Ralph Nader. This spring she is teaching a new and very innovative course at NEIU: JUST 351 Advocating for Social Justice in Illinois.

Heidi Truax is a graduate of Roosevent University's Women's and Gender Studies program, where she was the 2009 recipient of the Mansfield Institute social Justice Award. Not content to rest on her laurels, she is currently pursuing a second master's degree at Concordia University's School Counseling Program. In addition to her studies, she works full-time at Chicago Academy High School supervising the Course-Credit Recovery Program, which aims to help disadvantaged students succeed academically by transcending the obstacles of incarceration, gang affiliations, teen pregnancy, homeless-ness, and substance abuse. Since 2009 she has taught the course "Queer: Sex, Theory, and Activism" at Roosevelt University – a course she designed and developed. Heidi's areas of specialization include Behavioral Psychology & Minority Concerns, Queer Studies, Non-Profit Sector & Activist Movements, Feminist Philosophy, and the advancement of innovative pedagogy and education. We're pleased to have her teach JUST 328 Social Justice and LGBTQ Issues for Justice Studies this spring.