Associate Dean and Professor of Law Samuel Jones Earns PhD, Advancing UIC’s Research Agenda
Dr. Samuel Jones
In November of 2025, Associate Dean Samuel Jones earned the Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) from Kingston University London. Kingston University London is an upper-tier, globally ranked research institution with more than 120 years of academic heritage and is known for its applied work in law, criminology, and social justice.
Dr. Jones earned the PhD following a rigorous, multi-year program of doctoral research and examination at Kingston University London.
Substantively, the PhD extends a line of inquiry Dr. Jones has pursued with proven success for many years: how gendered assumptions shape the identification of victims and offenders, particularly in cases of sexual violence, trafficking, and institutional harm. Across this work, Dr. Jones advances a socio-legal critique of the prevailing female-victim-male-offender paradigm and develops the concept of Virtue Contracting, which he contends is a process by which society sustains an implicit cultural framework that operates under the appearance of moral duty. Legitimacy is then established by alignment with the female-victim-male-culprit narrative rather than empirical truth and the normative demands of equality and respect for human dignity.
The conceptual outcome, Dr. Jones argues, is that femininity becomes presumptively coded as morally innocent and masculinity as morally suspect. When embedded in law, policy, and institutional practice, this cultural default obscures male victimization, conceals female perpetration, and produces systemic blind spots in legal protection and public recognition of harm to men and boys. The Virtue Contract thus provides a unifying theoretical explanation for recurring societal failures across criminal justice, health, education, employment, and social policy.
Dr. Jones’ research continues to shape international inquiry on harm to males and inform scholarship across law reviews, empirical studies, and policy debates concerning gender bias, victim identification, and trafficking law. According to Google Scholar, Dr. Jones’ published works have amassed over 450 citations, with nearly 200 of those occurring since 2020, indicating sustained influence and accelerating growth. Moreover, his publications, all of which are sole-authored, have been cited not only in elite research journals, but also in policy documents and reports by international and governmental bodies, including the United Nations and U.S. federal presidential advisory entities, as part of emerging efforts to reassess how law and policy address male harm, female culpability, and institutional accountability. His advanced research in criminal jurisprudence was among the factors considered in his selection for the prestigious 2024 ABA Raeder–Taslitz Award. Recent empirical studies continue to validate many of the claims developed in Dr. Jones’ scholarship. For instance, the WestCoast Children’s Clinic recently published a comprehensive report, which cited his work, noting that “rates of sexual exploitation of cisgender boys are as high as or higher than that among cisgender girls,” and that prevailing gender stereotypes impede accurate victim identification and access to victim support services for males.
Building on this foundation, Dr. Jones’ forthcoming book, The Virtue Contract: The Hidden System by Which Society Fails Men and Boys, uses a socio-legal and moral-philosophical lens to examine how gendered moral defaults distort societal responses to male suicide, mental health, employment and education disparities, workplace injury, policing, and sexual exploitation. The book is expected to demonstrate that the Virtue Contract is not the result of bias alone, nor the product of malicious intent, but the consequence of societal allegiance to an implicit agreement to prioritize gendered moral narratives in a way that lacks legitimate practical authority, rewards performative virtue over evidence-based reasoning, and treats male suffering as an acceptable institutional cost.
Dr. Jones’ award-winning research has also shaped his leadership and administrative responsibilities, resulting in historic institutional achievements relative to remediation, retention, and student success. In 2021, the University of Illinois Chicago recognized his distinguished institutional service and leadership with the prestigious UIC Black History Maker Award in recognition of his historic success with remedial law student outcomes and community impact through his leadership of the UIC Law SCALES program, which has become a national model for academic development of promising at-risk law students. The combination of scholarly excellence and transformative student impact reflects the rare integration of research distinction, administrative leadership, and public service that advances the mission and reputation of an R1 institution.
As Professor of Law and Associate Dean at an R1 research university, Dr. Jones views his recent PhD as a platform for deeper research engagement, expanded grant activity, and heightened visibility for UIC Law. He expects his forthcoming book to extend a coherent research trajectory that speaks directly to contemporary concerns in social justice, gender equity, mental health, and institutional accountability—areas in which UIC Law is uniquely positioned to lead given its mission and student body.