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1. White Christian Privilege: The Illusion of Religious Equality in America with Khyati Joshi (Episo...

Author:
Khyati Joshi and Sahar Aziz
Publication Date:
05-2024
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
Center for Security, Race and Rights (CSRR), Rutgers University School of Law
Abstract:
Christianity has wielded significant influence on the American experiment from before the founding of the republic to the social movements of today. A recent book, “White Christian Privilege (https://khyatijoshi.com/book/white-ch...) : The Illusion of Religious Equality in America,” maps centuries of slavery, westward expansion, immigration, and citizenship laws to show how Christianity in the United States has always been entangled with notions of white supremacy. Host Sahar Aziz discusses this issue with author Dr. Khyati Joshi (https://www.khyatijoshi.com/) .
Topic:
Religion, History, Christianity, White Supremacy, Equality, Racism, and Christian Nationalism
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

2. Americans’ Support for Key LGBTQ Rights Continues to Tick Upward

Author:
Robert Jones, Natalie Jackson, Diana Orces, Ian Huff, and Maddie Snodgrass
Publication Date:
03-2022
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
PRRI: Public Religion Research Institute
Abstract:
For several years, PRRI has surveyed Americans’ support and opposition to three main LGBTQ rights policies: Laws that would protect gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people against discrimination in jobs, public accommodations, and housing (since 2015) Allowing a small business owner in your state to refuse to provide products or services to gay or lesbian people if doing so would violate their religious beliefs (since 2015) Allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry legally (since 2014) All three issues have been addressed in continued policy action and court decisions at the federal and state levels during this time period. There is currently no national law guaranteeing nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ people across most categories, but the 2019 Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia U.S. Supreme Court ruling found that LGBTQ discrimination in employment is considered “sex discrimination” as defined by the Civil Rights Act of 1964.[1] However, that ruling applies only to employment, and beyond that, 29 states currently do not have complete or any nondiscrimination protections for LGBTQ Americans.[2] The U.S. Congress is currently considering the Equality Act, which would bar discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity at the federal level.[3] The recent history of LGBTQ rights and the rights of private business owners to deny services that may violate their religious beliefs has been complex, notably involving a highly publicized battle between a baker and a gay couple for whom the baker refused to make a wedding cake. The years long battle culminated in the 2018 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, which sided with the baker on narrowly defined terms.[4] The issue remains unsettled, and the Supreme Court will hear another case on the issue in 2022.[5] Same-sex marriage was legalized at the federal level by the Obergefell v. Hodges U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 2015.[6] There are fears that the court, which is now majority conservative, might overturn the decision if an opportunity arises. If the ruling is overturned, same-sex marriage might become illegal in states that had not passed marriage equality legislation prior to 2015.[7]
Topic:
LGBT+, Marriage, Identity, and Equality
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

3. Deadly Disparities in the time of COVID-19: How Public Policy Fails Black and Latinx Chicagoans

Author:
Cal Lee Garrett, Cynthia Brito, Ivan Arenas, Claire Laurier Decoteau, and Fructoso M. Basaldua Jr.
Publication Date:
12-2021
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Institute for Research on Race and Public Policy (IRRPP), University of Illinois at Chicago
Abstract:
In this report we center the lived experiences Black, Latinx, and white residents of three neighborhoods — Austin, Little Village, and Albany Park — in order to explore how the pandemic has impacted different communities in the city. Drawing on over 150 interviews with residents and policy makers, we find that while COVID-19 has been treated as a health crisis at the federal, state, and local levels and thus has been fought through a series of public health strategies, the residents we spoke to experienced it as a much broader crisis related to housing, jobs, childcare, schooling, and healthcare. The policy response to COVID-19 gave explicit attention to racial equity but, for a number of reasons we lay out, often fell short in meeting the needs of the most vulnerable. Longstanding structural inequities meant that low-income and working-class Chicagoans were more vulnerable both to the disease and to the impact of disease mitigation strategies (e.g., economic fallout of the shutdown).
Topic:
Minorities, Discrimination, Urban, Community, Health Crisis, and Equality
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

4. The Opportunity Youth Forum: Forging a National Network to Advance Equitable Systems Change

Author:
Forum for Community Solutions
Publication Date:
02-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Aspen Institute
Abstract:
Independent evaluators Equal Measure conducted an evaluation to explore the status of the Opportunity Youth Forum, and the communities in which they operate, to better understand areas of strength and opportunities for additional focus and learning. This report details Network-wide evaluation findings drawn from data collection among 23 of 27 communities participating in the Forum for Community Solutions’ OYF Network in 2019.
Topic:
Youth, Values, Community, and Equality
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

5. Advancing Gender Equality at Home and Abroad by Leveraging Women, Peace, and Security

Author:
Carolyn Kenney
Publication Date:
08-2021
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Center for American Progress - CAP
Abstract:
To achieve even greater gains in gender equity and equality around the world, the Gender Policy Council should leverage and expand the U.S. government’s existing women, peace, and security mandate and architecture.
Topic:
Security, Women, Equality, and Gender
Political Geography:
North America, Global Focus, and United States of America

6. A Procurement Path to Equity

Author:
Center for Urban Innovation
Publication Date:
11-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Aspen Institute
Abstract:
Local governments are big buyers. Here in the U.S., our state and city governments collectively spend 1.6 trillion dollars per year. But for too long, how and with whom our local governments spend their money has reinforced economic inequities in our country. Minority-owned small businesses have been historically locked out of opportunities to contract with governments, and the current crisis has disproportionately impacted these very enterprises.
Topic:
Governance, Inequality, Business, Local, Equality, and Equity
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

7. Gender Equality in US Think Tank Leadership: Data from Tax Records

Author:
Charles Kenny and Julian Duggan
Publication Date:
11-2019
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Center for Global Development (CGD)
Abstract:
Existing analysis of US think tanks suggests that women are underrepresented among senior staff, lead- ership, and board members. Chantal de Jonge Oudraat and Soraya Kamali-Nafar at Women In Interna- tional Security examined 22 Washington, DC-based think tanks working on foreign policy and national and international security, and they found that 68 percent of the heads of the think tanks were men, along with 73 percent of the experts and 78 percent of those on governing boards. In 2018, a random sampling of 10 leading US think tanks working on development by Charles Kenny and Tanvi Jaluka sug- gested that women made up 30 percent of high-paid employees and 10 percent of highest-paid employ- ees, and that higher-paid women earned only 75 percent that of higher-paid men. This note updates the 2018 analysis with a larger sample of think tanks covering a longer period and includes measures of think tank reach to examine if more established think tanks perform better or worse on gender equality within their senior ranks. Across the 71 think tanks for which we have data, we find that the average share of trustees and directors that were women was 23 percent, the average share of highly compensated employees that were women was 30 percent, and highly compensat- ed women were paid 92 percent of what highly compensated men were paid. Conservative-leaning think tanks performed notably worse than the average on the share of high-paid employees who were women, as did think tanks that worked on global development. Older think tanks saw worse gender pay ratios. Having a woman as CEO was not associated with greater pay equality. Analysis of the gen- der pay ratio suggest that it may be driven in part by a few very highly compensated men in senior positions, but also that, conditional on job title and think tank of employment, highly paid women are paid $30,000 less per year than highly paid men.
Topic:
Gender Issues, Leadership, Feminism, and Equality
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

8. Break Through: Women in Silicon Valley, Womenomics in Japan Final Report

Author:
Asia-Pacific Research Center
Publication Date:
10-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center
Abstract:
On August 9, 2018, the Shorenstein Asia Pacific Research Center (APARC) hosted a conference, “Break Through: Women in Silicon Valley, Womenomics in Japan" with support from the Acceleration Program in Tokyo for Women (APT). Women thought-leaders and entrepreneurs from Stanford, Silicon Valley, and Japan came together to discuss innovative ideas for narrowing the gender gap, and cultivated interpersonal support networks and collaboration across the Pacific. The report, which is an outcome of the conference, offers an analysis and discussion of the themes and takeaways from the day.
Topic:
Gender Issues, Labor Issues, Women, Equality, and Sillicon Valley
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

9. How and Why Government, Universities, and Industry Create Domestic Labor Shortages of Scientists and High-Tech Workers

Author:
William Lazonick, Philip Moss, and Joshua Weitz
Publication Date:
12-2016
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET)
Abstract:
On June 2, 1965, under a mandate established by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the U.S. Congress created the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to enforce federal anti-discrimination laws related to employment. The expectation was that African Americans would be prime beneficiaries of the EEOC. There was no assumption that the EEOC, on its own, could reverse deep-rooted employment discrimination against blacks. But in the late 1960s there was optimism that, in combination with equal educational opportunity and the strong demand for unionized workers in the well-paid manufacturing jobs that marked the post-World War II decades, the EEOC could help to ensure that an ever-increasing number of blacks would ascend to the American middle class. African Americans as a group are better educated than they were in the 1960s, and, as discriminatory norms and practices have lessened, large numbers of college-educated blacks have experienced upward employment mobility into professional, technical, and administrative occupations. But the promise of a large-scale ascendancy of blacks to middle-class status, characterized by secure and well-paid employment, has not been fulfilled. Our basic thesis is that, in combination with the institutions of racism which remain widespread in American society, the erosion of secure and well-paid employment opportunities is a major reason for the persistence since the 1980s of African Americans as disproportionately disadvantaged. Our contribution to the larger debate on the economics of race is to focus on the role of corporate resource allocation as the prime determinant of the quantity and quality of employment opportunities in the economy. The decline of middle-class employment opportunities has adversely affected the majority of the U.S. labor force of all races, ethnicities, and genders. African Americans, however, have been more vulnerable than other demographic groups to this decline. U.S. institutions of corporate governance vest power over major resource-allocation decisions in the hands of senior executives, supported by their hand-picked corporate boards. Given the enormous size of the major business corporations and their centrality to economic activity, the resource-allocation decisions made by senior executives of major U.S. corporations profoundly influence the operation and performance of the economy as a whole—including the availability, or not, of secure and well-paid employment opportunities. The failure to include an analysis of corporate resource allocation and how it has changed over the past half century in the policy debate on income inequality is what we call the “equal employment opportunity omission.”
Topic:
Race, Employment, Inequality, Civil Rights, Legislation, and Equality
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America