The Samuel DuBois Cook Center is a scholarly collaborative that studies the causes and consequences of inequality and develops remedies for these disparities and their adverse effects.
Q+A: Jim C. Harper II Associate Dean for the School of Graduate Studies and Professor of History at North Carolina Central University (NCCU), Faculty Affiliate with the Duke Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity Dr. Jim C. Harper II is the Associate Dean for the School of Graduate Studies and Professor of History at North…
Cook Center Faculty Affiliate Fenaba R. Addo, Ph.D., recently coauthored a review article in the Annual Review of Sociology that explores the racialized dynamics of debt and wealth in the United States. The paper synthesizes various categories of research that examine the sources of racial disparities in wealth and debt, and it explores how these disparities reflect…
Pop quiz: You’re a junior economics professor who’s about to go up for tenure. How should you pick your potential reviewers so that your odds of success are highest? How do (or even how can) you balance the big three of teaching, research, and service to the profession? And, most importantly, where do you find…
Founding Director William Darity Jr. co-authored a new literature review in The BMJ that directly addresses one of the most persistent critiques of reparations: the claim that no feasible plan exists. The proposal outlines direct monetary payments as the clearest economic measure of the cumulative and intergenerational effects of white supremacy. The article argues that…
Cook Center Director William A. Darity Jr. will be among the featured speakers at an upcoming public hearing hosted by the New York State Community Commission on Reparations Remedies (NYSCCRR) on Saturday, March 21st, 2026, in Staten Island, New York. The hearing, titled “Economic Development: Quantifying Harms,” is part of the Commission’s statewide effort to…
New research co-authored by Faculty Affiliate Sarah Gaither, Associate Professor of Psychology & Neuroscience at Duke University, explores how something as routine as demographic forms can influence feelings of inclusion and identity among marginalized communities. Published in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, the study—“Enumeration or Exclusion? Demographic Forms and Latine Identity”—investigates how demographic questions may…
