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 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…
By Rachel Ruff “Caste, Class, and Race: Inequality and Reparations in the US and India,” a brand-new program from Duke Immerse designed by the Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity, offers Duke undergraduates an opportunity to spend the spring 2025 semester exploring group-based, systemic inequality with a focus on India and the United States,…
Founding Director William A. Darity Jr. was interviewed for a Forbes Talk by Ali Jackson-Jolley to discuss what economic freedom looks like in 2026. Dr. Darity is one of the leading voices in academia advancing the case for Black reparations in the U.S. He co-authored From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the…
A recent feature highlighted how Kisha N. Daniels, associate professor of the practice in education, continues to expand the reach of her service‑learning course, The Critical Pedagogy of Hip Hop, through community‑centered partnerships with Durham Public Schools. The story follows a semester‑long collaboration between Daniels’ Duke students and 11th graders at Jordan High School, culminating…
A study coauthored by faculty affiliates Joaquin Alfredo‑Angel Rubalcaba and Alberto Ortega explore the effectiveness of worker‑driven social responsibility programs on infant health outcomes in migrant farmworker communities. Published in Demography, the research examines whether the Fair Food Program, a worker‑rights initiative supported by corporate premiums, has had measurable health impacts on the communities it…
