Abolition Reparations Investment Safety
ARIS
Scholars for Social Justice developed the ARIS Framework (Abolition–Reparations– Investment–Safety) as (1) an analytic to understand and connect different strands of struggle among scholar-activists, and as (2) a strategy to convene and organize university-based workers, clarifying the stakes of political mobilization, and generating wide solidarity towards social transformation.
The ARIS Study Circle focuses on imparting tools for political mobilization and creating a community of scholar-activists across campuses, anchored in Black Study. Participants will learn organizing skills and strategies for nurturing emergent communities of scholar-activists dedicated to making meaningful change within university settings.
The Study Circle is oriented around these principles and traditions:
Political Mobilization of Academic Workers/Scholar-Activists: We explore the ARIS (Abolition-Reparations-Investment-Safety) framework, and discuss concrete strategies for campus organizing. The ARIS Study Circle explores and shares tools, skills, and contacts to build an inter-campus community of Academic Workers and Scholar-Activists.
Black Study: We insist on the struggle for an anti-racist people-led democracy, created out of the ongoing work to abolish anti-Black systems of racial capitalism and carcerality, and to create reparative futures for all our people. Black Study recognizes the living bonds between Academic Workers and their People, bonds that unsettle the conventional boundaries and protocols of the university.
Black Radical Traditions: We look to Black Radical Traditions across the African diaspora as our key sources for the praxis of liberation struggle, labor organizing, and movement-building.
Black Feminist Praxis: Black Feminist Praxis is at the heart of Black Study. We recognize that Black womxn, through their political organizing and their community-building, have long articulated a feminist theory and praxis of intersectional people’s liberation in which “no one of us can be free until we are all free.”
ARIS 2026 Study Circle, February-April 2026
We invite you to join ARIS Study Circle, where we’ll engage with SSJ’s Abolition-Reparations-Investment-Safety (ARIS) framework to proactively meet this moment head-on. The Study Circle is open to scholar-activists and organizers in faculty, staff, grad student, and administrative roles.
The Study Circle, anchored in Black Study and SSJ’s ARIS framework, is focused on building an inter-campus network of progressive academic workers dedicated to movement building. ARIS 2026 will meet monthly from February through April for a mix of in-depth sessions and optional small-group office hours.
Over the course of this Study Circle, we’ll prepare ourselves for the ongoing struggle, analyze the causes and conditions of the current convergence.
We will study together to build consciousness and praxis, and to become more adaptive, responsive, and proactive in our organizing. Join us!
Deadline for applications is January 12, 2026.
If you have any questions about the application or queries, please email [ssjustice.aris] @ [gmail] [.com] and we will be sure to get back to you in a timely manner.