Gaining Insight

Institute for Racial Justice works toward insight on complex and urgent issues

SINCE ITS CREATION IN 2020, the Institute for Racial Justice (IRJ) has become a leading interdisciplinary hub for racial justice work across Loyola University Chicago and the city itself.

Under the leadership of Founding Dean Malik Henfield, PhD, the institute fosters relationships across disciplines to accelerate research and education with the goal of understanding multifocal aspects of race and racism and creating collective impact.

IRJ projects having impact in 2024 included a comprehensive study of the dynamics of race and economics in The State of Black Chicago report, carried out in partnership between IRJ and the Chicago Urban League.

Led by IRJ faculty affiliate Twyla Blackmond Larnell, PhD, associate professor of political science in the College of Arts and Sciences, the report illustrates the interplay of historical segregation, housing policies, and urban planning that perpetuates social and economic inequities and continues to obstruct paths to intergenerational prosperity for communities of color.