Visiting Fellows Program
Funded by the Mellon Foundation, the Visiting Fellows Program is a non-residential fellowship and signature initiative of the Center for Racial Justice. The program offers social justice leaders, activists, artists, advocates, and scholars a prestigious, highly competitive fellowship designed to recognize their transformative work to date and provide opportunities to advance their future endeavors.
Meet our 2025-26 cohort
Visiting Fellow
Holly Bass
Visiting Fellow, Center for Racial Justice
Holly Bass is an award-winning, socially-engaged artist working across multiple disciplines including dance, theater, visual art and writing. She has collaborated with governmental agencies, cultural institutions, nonprofit organizations and academic communities to create innovative artistic experiences that foster connection among groups of strangers. Her artwork can be found in the permanent collection of the National Gallery of Art and the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery. She was a founding member of DC WritersCorps which sent her into schools, community centers and women’s shelters to teach poetry workshops. She continues to travel the country and the world, using the arts to build community and transform the social culture of classrooms, workplaces and public spaces.
Personal website
Visiting Fellow
Ayesha Bell Hardaway
Visiting Fellow, Center for Racial Justice
Ayesha Bell Hardaway, JD, is a Professor of Law at Case Western Reserve University where she serves as Director of the Law School’s Social Justice Law Center and its Criminal Defense Clinic. Professor Hardaway also serves as Director of the University’s Social Justice Institute. Her leadership role at the Social Justice Institute began in May 2020 after an appointment by then Provost Ben Vincent III. Professor Hardaway’s research and scholarship interests include the intersection of race with constitutional law, criminal law, policing, and civil litigation. She has written on many topics including reparations, labor law, the Thirteenth Amendment, and policing.
Visiting Fellow
R. L’Heureux Lewis-McCoy
Visiting Fellow, Center for Racial Justice
R. L’Heureux Lewis-McCoy is a scholar whose work and activism center issues of race, place, education, and opportunity. He is an Associate Professor at New York University in the Sociology of Education program in the School of Culture, Education and Human Development. He is author of the forthcoming book A Dream Dissolved: How Opportunity Hoarding Bankrupted Education (One Signal – Simon & Shuster/Atria). He is the co-lead investigator of the Black Suburban Experience Project. His first book, Inequality in the Promised Land (Stanford University Press, 2014) tackled how inequality persisted in an “integrated” school and suburban community. His larger research interests include race and racism, gender justice, and community mobilization.
Personal website
Events
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Apr
9
2026
Mar
12
2026