The Ira A. Lipman Center For Journalism and Civil and Human Rights

The Ira A. Lipman Center convenes leaders in journalism and civil and human rights and conducts research around social justice issues. It enhances the academic experience of current journalism school students by contributing to curricula design and developing student activities inspired by the center’s work.

"Our objective in all of our work is to help shape the discourse around a fraught subject that continues to undergird a great deal of American life," says Columbia Journalism Dean Jelani Cobb, former director of the Lipman Center. “We hope to support a cohort of reporters who bring the depth of knowledge and perspective to the coverage of race that we routinely expect of journalists who cover the economy, politics and foreign policy. To do so would be a service to the profession, and to the public.”

At the heart of the center’s mission is the establishment of annual fellowships intended to produce significant civil and human rights reportage. The center also administers the Initiative in Reporting on Race and Criminal Justice, a reporting project for local newsrooms to investigate systemic racism in the criminal justice system.