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 Core Faculty Keisha L. Bentley-Edwards recently published a paper in the Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities (JREHD) that details how, while racial discrimination leads to negative cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk among African American women and men, religious coping may be a fruitful mechanism for mitigating these negative effects. Dr. Bentley-Edwards, the Associate…
Senior Research Associate Adam Hollowell, PhD, and Associate in Research Kennedy Ruff published a new article in The Upper New, titled “Four ‘-ologies’ of Inequality Research.” In the article, which expanded upon a lecture Dr. Hollowell–the director of the Inequality Studies Minor–had delivered previously to the Hank and Billye Aaron Young Scholars Summer Institute–the summer program…
Cook Center DITE Fellow Joaquin Alfredo-Angel Rubalcaba recently published a paper in the American Economic Association’s (AEA) Paper and Proceedings that details how local law enforcement agencies in North Carolina, under the threat of federal scrutiny, shifted their racially discriminatory policing practices. Rubalcaba, an assistant professor in the Carolina Population Center at the University of North…
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…
