Equity and Opportunity Studies Fellowship
The Rutgers-Newark Equity and Opportunity Studies Fellowship is a joint partnership of the Graduate School at Rutgers University-Newark and the Rutgers Law School Center on Law in Metropolitan Equity (CliME). The fellowship aims to promote interdisciplinary study and serious public scholarship about the structure of place-based inequality among select graduate students and law students. It is open to all students in the Graduate School-Newark and the Rutgers Law School.
Overview
This is a one-year fellowship available to law students and graduate students from any graduate school program who are interested in publishing an interdisciplinary research project on issues related to equity and opportunity in the Greater Rutgers region of Northern New Jersey. While separate from students' degree/unit requirements, the fellowship will afford opportunities to explore one's interests in collaboration with students and faculty from other Rutgers departments. For example, law students interested in segregation and local government law may study alongside public health, psychology, or American studies students interested in the stress reactions common in segregated neighborhoods. Or graduate students in urban systems or political science studying the incidence and reduction of achievement gaps may collaborate with law students pursuing interdistrict educational choice remedies under New Jersey law. The possibilities are boundless.
Graduate students and law students will be provided stipendsfor participation in the program.
Requirements
The fellowship year is divided into three parts:
1. Fall semester workshops. Fellows will participate in four half-day substantive workshops on topics such as fair housing, public finance, or criminal justice and public health held in October and November.
2. Spring semester coursework. Fellows will identify a paper adviser from their own or another department and design a research project. They must then enroll in a course that specifically advances the research on their chosen topic, such as Race, Class, and Metropolitan Equity (description below) at the law school.
3. Summer writing. In the third part, students have the summer to complete a publishable paper of no less than 25 pages. The paper will be published electronically on the CLiME website, the graduate school website, and together in limited hard copy release. The fellowship will culminate with an annual public scholarship conference in the fall at which fellows (and others) will present their papers.
To Apply
All application materials must be submitted online.
Online Application Form
Course Description
Race, Class, and Metropolitan
Equity (3 credits)
This class examines the role of
law and other disciplines in
the creation and amelioration of structural inequality. Structural
inequality is viewed primarily
through the lens of place-based opportunities. That is, we
examine the institutional
resources available to households, neighborhoods, and
municipalities where
they're located. We analyze the rules
and policies that enhance those resources as well as the
barriers that limit
them. Among
the topics we explore in
detail are concentrated wealth and poverty; local land use
regulation; public
finance; educational equity; racial and economic
segregation; state and federal
housing policy; public health; infrastructure and
transportation. We
explore solutions to the disparities
affecting different parts of our regions by utilizing the
interdisciplinary
perspective of metropolitan equity--the range of legal and
policy reforms at the
regional level that may provide greater social balance,
political efficiency,
and economic opportunity for a changing society. Students
are primarily graded on research
papers. [This
class is associated with
the Rutgers Center on Law in Metropolitan Equity and is
often cross-listed with
other Rutgers University-Newark graduate departments.]
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Graduate Study at the University 
