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 Faculty Affiliate Dr. Omer Ali, an Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of Pittsburgh, recently received a grant (with his colleagues Randall Walsh and Andreas Ferrara) from the Russell Sage Foundation. Under the grant category of “Social, Political, and Economic Inequality”, Dr. Ali and his colleagues will examine how historical mortgage insurance…
DURHAM, N.C. — The Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity at Duke University is excited to announce its founding director, William A. “Sandy” Darity, Jr., has been named a 2024 Distinguished Fellow by the American Economic Association (AEA). Darity, the Samuel DuBois Cook Professor of Public Policy, African and African American Studies, and Economics…
Faculty Affiliate and Artist-in-Residence at the Cook Center, Bruce Orenstein, has been featured in Crain’s Chicago Business in an article and a podcast for his soon-to-be-released docuseries Shame of Chicago, Shame of the Nation. Shame of Chicago, Shame of the Nation is a four-part documentary series that lays bare the story of how Chicago devised…
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…
