Courtney M. Echols

Assistant Professor of Sociology & Criminology
University of Utah

Courtney Echols is an Assistant Professor of Sociology and Criminology at the University of Utah, a system-impacted scholar, first-generation college graduate, and Racial Justice Act expert. For over a decade, she organized with the Stop LAPD Spying Coalition, a community organization building power to abolish the police state. She also co-founded the Orange County Mutual Aid Collective, which centers radical Black, Indigenous, and other people of color’s political agendas and struggles through direct action, advocacy, mobilization, and political education. Courtney earned both her J.D. and Ph.D. in Criminology, Law & Society at the University of California, Irvine, where she also earned a Master’s degree in Social Ecology and a B.A., graduating summa cum laude with triple majors in Criminology, Law & Society, Psychology & Social Behavior, and Social Ecology. Her primary research focuses on documenting historical anti-Black violence and examining its enduring legacies, particularly the reproduction of anti-Black racism, racial domination, and oppressive conditions through policing and the criminal legal system. Her work, as a community organizer, teacher, and researcher is grounded in critical reflection, accountability, and radical love, guided by two principles: Once Black people get free, everybody gets free, and to know the present, we must understand the history.