The Certificate in Law, Justice & Culture is appropriate for students who plan to pursue professions in law, rights advocacy, justice administration, public policy, government, nonprofit organizations, and academic research and teaching.
Law, Justice & Culture
Undergraduate Certificate
Law, Justice & Culture Certificate
The Law, Justice & Culture Certificate brings together interdisciplinary coursework across the social sciences and humanities to provide students with intellectual training in a law & society perspective. Certificate courses train students to think critically about law and to ask critical questions about law as it operates in the world around us. Certificate courses address law's formative and constitutive role in cultural, political, and social life from a liberal arts perspective.
Careers with a Law, Justice & Culture Certificate
Admission Requirements
Students from All Majors Invited To Apply
The Center for Law, Justice & Culture invites Ohio University undergraduate students from all majors to apply for the Certificate in Law, Justice & Culture.
Apply by Oct. 3
Enrollment in the certificate program is a competitive process modeled after selection for law and graduate schools. Students with an overall GPA of 3.4 or above are eligible for 25 slots per year.
During the fall application cycle, students are asked to submit an application essay as well as a current DARS report through our online application. Those who do not meet the GPA requirement may submit an optional essay explaining their qualifications.
Essay Prompts for Application
The Law, Justice & Culture Certificate program provides students with undergraduate training in law and society studies. Through the program, students learn to think critically about law in relation to society, culture, politics and power, in U.S. and international contexts.
On the application form for the Law, Justice & Culture Certificate, students will be asked to write a 300-word essay in response to one of following prompts:
- Read W.H. Auden's poem "Law, Like Love." Following Auden, how might we imagine law to be like love, and what are the implications of this relationship?
- You have been appointed as chair of a special commission tasked with addressing any major issue dealing with law, justice, and culture in the United States. You must invite two of the following experts to join your commission: an author, an engineer, an economist, a lawyer, a psychiatrist, a social worker, a historian, a journalist, and a social scientist. (a) What issue would you choose, and why? (b) Which two types of experts would you choose, and why?
- Identify a fictional book, movie, documentary, or television show that relates to law, justice, and culture. In your essay, interpret this item of popular media, with special attention to what it reveals about the relationships among law, justice, and culture.
- Present an image that relates to law, justice, and culture. It could be a photograph that you have taken, or from another source; an artistic representation; or another image, object, or structure that evokes law. In your essay, interpret this image, with special attention to what it reveals about the relationships among law, justice, and culture.
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Certificate Courses & Curriculum
View Certificate Courses & Requirements in the Official Academic Catalog
The Law, Justice & Culture Certificate requires completion of a minimum of 18 semester hours, including three required core courses.
Once accepted into the program, Law, Justice & Culture students enroll in LJC 2000: Core Course in Law, Justice & Culture, offered annually in the spring. They are required to take at least one LJC elective course outside of their majors to ensure that they are exposed to interdisciplinary perspectives. As they proceed through the certificate coursework, LJC students participate in the intellectual life of the Center and engage in practice-oriented learning opportunities such as internships and research projects, all dealing with issues of democratic governance, social justice, and human rights.
Our Law and Society Approach
This certificate program provides students with intellectual training in a “law and society” perspective in the liberal arts. A law and society perspective refers to a particular interdisciplinary approach to the study of law in its societal context, focusing on the place of law in social, political, economic, and cultural life. A law and society approach does not simply define law as a system of rules, doctrines, and decisions, but rather views law as a set of institutional practices that have developed in relation to other social institutions, including cultural, economic, religious, kinship, and political systems. The law and society perspective foregrounds these modes of interdependence and seeks to describe them through empirical methodologies- through attention to law as it is actually practiced, in particular contexts, as an institutional domain of everyday life.
The Center for Law, Justice & Culture fosters and promotes this interdisciplinary perspective, with an emphasis specifically on the nexus of law, justice, and culture. For this reason, the Certificate Program approaches law as a social, political, and cultural phenomenon that is inextricably intertwined in questions of justice, inequality, governance, democracy, violence, and liberation.
Meet the New Law, Justice & Culture Certificate Cohort
Thirty-nine undergraduate students have been accepted into the fall cohort of the interdisciplinary Law, Justice & Culture certificate.
Explore Law and Democracy in South Africa
Students engaged in numerous experiential opportunities studying the legacy of apartheid, the leadership of Nelson Mandela and other freedom fighters, and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
Contact Us
For more information about the certificate and the Center, contact Dr. Kevin Uhalde, Center Director, and Larry Hayman, Director of Legal Engagement and Pre-Law Program.