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 Cook Center is pleased to announce that Founding Director, Dr. William A. Darity Jr. will deliver the opening keynote address at the upcoming “Behind the Data: Quantitative Approaches to Interdisciplinary Racism Research” conference. This significant event is organized by the WinRa Regional Network South, in collaboration with the University of Bayreuth and the University…
Cook Center Postdoctoral Associate Will Damron’s paper was used in a blog post comparing the implementation of electricity and mechanised cotton spinning as new technologies to the current implementation of AI as a new technology. Johan Fourie uses Damron’s newest paper, Gains from Factory Electrification: Evidence from North Carolina, 1905-1926, to support an argument that…
Directed by documentary filmmaker and Cook Center Faculty Affiliate Bruce Orenstein, Shame of Chicago: Shame of the Nation is a five-part documentary series that brings alive the story of how Chicago’s real estate industry designed and exported the practices and policies that racially divided America’s northern cities during the 20th century. In the 2023-2024 Chicago/Midwest…
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…
