Social Justice

UC Merced’s School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts made a splash in the latest rankings of university graduate programs compiled by U.S. News and World Report.

The university’s Political Science program ranked 52nd in the nation, tied with UC Riverside, Purdue University-West Lafayette, the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and Arizona State University.

LGBTQ2S+ individuals use tobacco and nicotine products at significantly higher rates than straight and cisgender people, research shows. Reasons can include stress and other health problems brought on by systemic and social prejudice, along with barriers to support for breaking the habit.

UC Merced and CalPride Valle Central have partnered with the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences and advocates from across the nation to develop a program to support efforts by LGBTQ2S+ people to quit smoking.

This story is part of a series for Black History Month. Read more stories highlighting Black excellence at UC Merced.

The brutal deaths of African Americans George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and others at the hands of police officers five years ago catalyzed for Black communities to unite globally and reignite the Black Lives Matter movement.

Todo Cambia, UC Merced’s annual Human Rights Film Festival, is about more than film this year.

Deborah Taffa, an Indigenous author and educator whose book about growing up in a mixed-race home and struggling with social acceptance was hailed as one the best memoirs of 2024, will make a special visit to Merced this month.

UC Merced's Nicotine and Cannabis Policy Center has embarked on an innovative partnership with university researchers who can track an entire community’s health and habits with samples of human sewage.

The project aims to determine trends and levels of nicotine use in San Joaquin Valley communities through chemicals in wastewater. Collecting hard data on smoking and vaping can aid NCPC’s mission to help local public health agencies, community organizations and tobacco-control researchers give informed responses to the problem.

Faculty members at UC Merced are taking the lead on four Multicampus Research Program Initiatives (MRPI), working with colleagues around the University of California system to address challenges around labor and agriculture, active matter, Indigenous health and fusion energy.

Tsitsi Dangarembga spread the spirit of ubuntu over UC Merced on Wednesday night, imparting its message of “how we can be good people who live well together.”

Solid and sharable research data must go hand in hand with collaboration and caring to tackle the health gaps that trouble minoritized and underserved populations in the San Joaquin Valley and elsewhere.

That was the main message from a national leader in minority health care disparities during a presentation Oct. 29 at UC Merced. Dr. Eliseo Pérez-Stable, director of the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD), spoke to students and faculty at the invitation of the university’s Public Health Department.

Black and Hispanic faculty members seeking promotion at research universities face career-damaging biases, with their scholarly production judged more harshly than that of their peers, according to a groundbreaking initiative co-led by UC Merced that aims to uncover the roots of these biases and develop strategies for change.