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.
Faculty Affiliate Carliss Chatman, Professor at SMU Dedman School of Law, wrote an op-ed on Proposition 6, a measure on the upcoming Texas’s ballot that would make Texas the only state in the nation with a constitutional ban on securities-transfer taxes and occupation taxes on register market operators. Chatman notes that Texas is already a…
Faculty Affiliate Joaquín Alfredo-Angel Rubalcaba, Assistant Professor in the Department of Public Policy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, is co-author of a new article titled “Farmwork and family: How mixed-status families influence the mental health of foreign-born farmworkers” in SSM – Mental Health. The study explores how immigration-status dynamics within farmworker…
Rachel Ruff, Research Associate and Research & Communications Fellow at the Samuel DuBois Cook Center, was a featured contributor in the Fall/Winter 2025 issue of ESSENCE Magazine, where she authored “Leaders of The New School: How Historically Black Colleges and Universities Are Defying the Odds and Creating a New Class of Innovators.” HBCU alums are…
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…
