While Georgetown is a hub for diverse areas of research, there’s only one program where students are encouraged to explore Afro-Colombian feminism through musical traditions while professors debate weaponizing artificial intelligence against human trafficking.
Georgetown’s Gender+ Justice Initiative (G+JI) “aims to address the pressing problem of gender inequality, discrimination, and injustice across intersecting identities.” The initiative was created in response to faculty discussions on supporting gender justice research during the 2015-16 academic year, according to G+JI. This year, the program is hosting 20 fellows, providing them with a $1500 stipend to conduct a research project culminating in a report on their findings.
This Georgetown-based initiative is particularly important in light of President Donald Trump’s executive order banning the use of federal research grant funds for studies that “promote gender ideology.” Furthermore, legislation defunding or banning women and gender studies programs has become increasingly common. Nearly 42% of women and gender studies departments across the U.S. saw budget decreases in 2024, according to the National Women’s Studies Association. The laws, budget cuts, and Trump’s executive order indicate a growing lack of institutional support for gender-related research.
G+JI, which does not receive federal funding, provides a valuable opportunity for scholars to enrich their understanding of such issues and supplement the gap in federal research.
Sreya Patri (SFS ’26) is among six undergraduates participating in the fellow program. Patri took a Women, Peace, and Security class her sophomore year that sparked her interest in the intersection of gender and security among Arctic natives. With G+JI, Patri is researching “Reconciling Masculinities, Femininities, and Climate Justice within Indigenous Arctic Communities.”
“I was also super interested in the Arctic and Indigenous communities there, and I wanted to shed more light on their voices because I feel like they haven’t been talked about from a security standpoint,” Patri said.
As someone newer to research, Patri credits G+JI with providing resources that bridged gaps in her knowledge.
“We’ve had a couple of workshops with various experts ranging from how to research to what to research to where to get published,” Patri said. “It’s pointed me in the right direction.”
While G+JI’s strong support systems ensure participants stay on track with their projects, the bulk of the program is self-directed. After fellows submit their research proposals, they work throughout the year to turn their vision into a finished project.
Cassius Hou (LAW ’28, PhD ’29) hopes to eventually publish a full-length book with their findings on nonbinary gender identities.
“My inspiration for this project came from a couple of different points. I’m focusing on the nonbinary gender identity because I’m nonbinary,” Hou said. “I also thought it was interesting that, in more recent times, we’re seeing this uptake of ‘X’ to signify the nonbinary gender identity. Gender is always something that exceeds language, but we must reduce it to something packageable in order to make ourselves intelligible.”
Given that nonbinary gender identities are a fledgling focus of academia—and this research is now restricted for federal researchers following Trump’s executive order denying legal recognition of nonbinary people—G+JI offers an important space to learn how to conduct and circulate research like Hou’s.
“When you are a beginning academic, you look at journal articles and the acceptance rates and you’re like, ‘Wow, no one will accept my work. I don’t want to even try,’” Hou said. “I think that’s really pernicious around minority groups who have been coached to think they are somehow lesser than.”
However, Hou added that G+JI builds fellows up, encouraging them to strive for recognition by prestigious publications “because there’s always room at the top.”
Aside from the undergraduate and graduate students breaking into research, nine faculty members are G+JI fellows this year, each with their own academic interests. One is Halimat Somotan, an African Studies professor and historian of Nigeria whose research focuses on women and housing during decolonization.
“I began to think about what kinds of people were discussed, [and] a lot of the academic materials gave the impression that the only people renting apartments were men,” Somotan said. “So, how do we make visible the women who were also trying to create a space for themselves in a city?”
In her upcoming book, “The Decolonizing City: Popular Politics and the Making of Postcolonial Lagos, 1941-76,” Somotan explores women’s roles in pushing for rent control and housing justice in post-independence Lagos, one of Nigeria’s largest metropolitan areas. Much of her research for G+JI uses archival materials from Nigeria and Britain, along with supplementary oral histories.
“Through interviews I’ve been able to really get at the daily lived experiences of people. What kind of amenities did they have? What kind of visions about the city did they have? What kind of relationships did they have?” Somotan said. “The archives promote this idea that the relationship between renters and landlords is only conflict-based. The conflict is part of the story, but it’s not the only story.”
Somotan finds an important benefit in researching with the G+JI: community. In the face of turmoil and anxiety over federal bans, the initiative has cultivated hope for the future of gender studies.
“It’s a space that gives you an opportunity to form relationships with like-minded scholars,” Somotan said. “The program has a lot of mechanisms that are put into place to help everybody flourish and achieve their goals.”
