How are social justice and civil rights related? Can you have one without the other? Why or why not?

Social justice and civil rights are related because civil rights are often a vehicle used to achieve social justice. "Social justice" is the broadest possible way of referring to a project of achieving justice for oppressed groups in society-- this may include women, racial minorities, members of the LGBT community, or religious minorities. However, there are many avenues through which justice can be achieved. Many social justice initiatives do focus on obtaining civil rights for oppressed groups, meaning that these groups will have certain rights recognized by the government that cannot be infringed upon. Recent examples of civil rights gains include legalizing gay marriage, outlawing segregation, and outlawing gender based employment discrimination. However, civil rights are not the only way in which social justice can be achieved. Even if a group has all of their rights recognized by the government, they may still be discriminated against in society in ways that are difficult to legislate. Though the feminist movement achieved legal equality for women, for example, women still do much more housework than childcare than man. However, it would not be appropriate to respond to this problem through governmental means. Changing societal perceptions of housework and childcare would be more effective. As such, you can't have civil rights without social justice, but you could, theoretically, have social justice without civil rights. Whether civil rights is an appropriate approach depends on the group in question and the specific way in which they are discriminated against.

In my opinion, social justice and civil rights are not necessarily simultaneous, but they are most definitely linked. First, for the purposes of this question, we need to establish exactly what society we are discussing, as each society is going to have its own history in terms of social justice and civil rights and equality. If we are discussing the United States, then it is important to note that the US has had (and still has) an evolving relationship with both of these concepts. In a perfect world, social justice and civil rights would evolve and grow together. However, that has rarely been the case in the United States. Ideally, our concept of social justice revolves around social norms that are by and large accepted by society. The problem is that historically (as well as today, in my opinion) the very people that are kept outside of the social justice loop are those who have a minority view or experience that the majority of the population do not identify with. There are tons of examples to bear this out in the US: the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s, the women's liberation and equality movements (as well as "Me too" currently), and the gay rights movement. In each case, there was a minority group in society that, in one way or another, was not experiencing true social justice, as in some way they were not able to do something that their majority counterparts were able to. The problem historically seems to be that the majority is slow to react to social change and the evolving needs of society. In each case there was slow progression toward equality in civil rights and the necessary laws to establish social justice. So, in closing, are they related? Absolutely. Can you have one without the other? Absolutely not.