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 Dr. Nancy MacLean, the William H. Chafe Distinguished Professor of History and Public Policy at Duke University, is a participant in two recently-funded, multi-year grant projects to address the escalating attacks from the political right on education at all levels. First, the Mellon Foundation has funded the creation of a sizable Center for…
Faculty Affiliate Dr. Loneke Blackman Carr, Assistant Professor in the Nutrition Department at the University of Connecticut, has received the Early Career Faculty Award from the Health Equity Special Interest Group of the Society of Behavioral Medicine. Dr. Carr’s research focuses on reducing disparities in obesity prevalence, and obesity prevention and treatment intervention outcomes in…
Cook Center Faculty Affiliate Lauren Brinkley-Rubinstein, PhD, was recently quoted in a CNN article about how organs of deceased inmates in Alabama have been removed without family consent. In the article, she states: “It’s the wild, wild west. There’s no governance. … What that health care should look like, who has bodily autonomy and who…
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…
