Information Systems and Social Justice: Functional Specification and Closure in the Age of Abnormal Justice

Organizations and researchers alike increasingly acknowledge that organizational information systems may have negative effects on social justice and lead to social injustice. This led to scrutiny and attempts to modify existing or implement new information systems, yet many such attempts bring complex or disappointing outcomes. We analyze one organization's attempt to develop and implement a pronoun system to foster social justice through the idea of abnormal justice and show how functional simplification and closure inherent in information systems may be at odds with social justice. We show how the organization achieved a more just outcome by embracing abnormal justice and drawing on functional complexification and porous closure. Our findings offer a potential contribution to information systems design and social justice, as well as a pathway for how to design impactful and socially just systems in practice.