Peniel E. Joseph

In July 2020, Joseph was appointed a director of the Bayard Rustin Center for Social Justice, an LGBTQIA safe-space community activist center, located in Princeton, NJ.

Peniel E. Joseph is an American scholar, teacher, and public voice on race issues who holds a joint professorship appointment at the LBJ School of Public Affairs and the History Department in the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin). Joseph joined UT Austin in 2015 from Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts, where he had founded the school's Center for the Study of Race and Democracy (CSRD). He founded the second Center for the Study of Race and Democracy (CSRD) on the University of Texas campus in 2016, and is director of the center. Joseph also serves as Vice President of the Board of Directors at the Bayard Rustin Center for Social Justice, an LGBTQIA safe-space, community activist center, and educational enclave dedicated to honoring Bayard Rustin through their mission and good works. At UT–Austin, Joseph holds the Barbara Jordan Chair Professorship in ethics and political values.

As a national commentator, Joseph has spoken at the 2008 Democratic and Republic National Conventions, PBS's NewsHour with Jim Lehrer and CSPAN. He has also appeared on NBC's Morning Joe, and the Colbert Report.

Joseph attended the State University of New York at Stony Brook, where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Africana Studies and European History. He received a Ph.D. in American History from Temple University in 2000.