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.
Cook Center Faculty Affiliate Fenaba Addo, Ph.D. joined Leoneda Inge and Stacia Brown in a conversation about student loan debt. Dr. Addo is an associate professor of public policy at the University of North Carolina- Chapel Hill and is the co-author of A Dream Defaulted: The Student Loan Crisis Among Black Borrowers. In this interview,…
As companies scale back on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, Faculty Affiliate Carliss Chatman writes about the legal risks in “running away” from these agreements in article for Bloomberg Law. Chatman is an associate professor a Southern Methodist University’s Dedman School of Law specializing in the fields of corporate law, commercial law, race and entrepreneurship,…
After Maryland’s proposed bill to study reparations was vetoed, Founding Director William A. “Sandy” Darity Jr., Ph.D. shared his perspective with The Washington Post, emphasizing that while the bill’s aim was commendable, state-level efforts are fundamentally insufficient. Based on the research Dr. Darity and his colleagues have conducted on the racial wealth gap, the amount…
Faculty Affiliate Carliss Chatman, Professor at SMU Dedman School of Law, was quoted in a story by Marketplace examining how companies are quietly rebranding diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. The article explores how some corporations are scaling back or reframing public-facing DEI language amid political scrutiny. And, that the broader landscape is more nuanced…
February 20, 2026 — A new first-of-its-kind study of nearly 3,000 adults in New York City finds significant inequities in wealth and health outcomes across the 11 most common racial and ethnic groups, showing that Black and Latino New Yorkers have less wealth and unfairly worse health outcomes compared to others. Conducted in June 2024 by…
Faculty Affiliate Omer Ali is an Assistant Professor of economics at the University of Pittsburgh, and previous postdoctoral fellow a the Cook Center. Ali is the lead researcher on a new article published in Regional Science and Urban Economics this month examining the relationship between race and home values in Durham, North Carolina. The study…
