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.
The Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity is proud to celebrate the release of Stratification Economics and Disability Justice, a new book by Adam Hollowell, Ph.D. and Keisha Bentley-Edwards, Ph.D. Published by Cambridge University Press, explores how the activism of Black disabled leaders must be central to how we understand and address economic inequality…
In the summer of 2020, WUNC launched a special coverage series titled “Calling for Change.” The series highlighted the voices of Black activists and leaders advocating for racial equity in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder and the widespread protests that followed. Five years later, WUNC revisited several of those voices to reflect on what…
Nancy MacLean, Cook Center faculty affiliate and William H. Chafe Professor of History and Public Policy at Duke University, was recently quoted in a major DeSmog investigation revealing ties between current cabinet members and the organizations behind Project 2025. The DeSmog report found that 70 percent of Trump’s cabinet has direct ties to groups affiliated…
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…
