endinequality is digital portal for public scholarship on structural inequality, and innovative solutions to inequality, in an effort for us all end-in-equality. endinequality is published by the Rutgers Center on Law, Inequality and Metropolitan Equity (CLiME). CLiME is dedicated to interdisciplinary scholarship on issues of structural inequality and place-based opportunity New Jersey and beyond.
A new type of person has emerged across the nation: “diverse” humans. If you haven’t seen many of us — I am one — in your institution, workplace or school, that’s because the effort to include “diverse” students, engineers, actors, executives or other candidates is still trying to gain traction.
Read MoreWhen it comes to misogyny and white supremacy, we’ve held the wrong audience accountable. For years, Harvey Weinstein’s and Donald Trump’s private audiences could be divided into two types of (often) men: his vocal supporters and his silent endorsers. The outspoken supporters — whether casual misogynists or white supremacists — are henchmen who helped take down women’s careers or allies in Congress who are themselves proponents of a white nationalist agenda. Most critics of both Weinstein and Trump consider this “base” group the real problem.
Read MoreWelcome to the Place, Race, and Equity Legislative Watch, which tracks proposed federal legislation by Congress that impact the fight to eliminate place-based inequality. Between January 3 and May 26th, members of Congress have proposed 5,149 bills and resolutions. Of these, 40 are on the topic of Housing and Community Development. In that time, 16 bills have become law. Note: Senator Lindsey Graham has stated, “For all practical purposes the political process will be ground to a halt by these allegations,” in reference to the ongoing allegations against President …
Read MoreWelcome to the Place, Race, and Equity Legislative Watch. We will be tracking proposed federal legislation by Congress that impact the fight to eliminate place-based inequality. Before proposed legislation becomes law, it is reviewed by an internal committee, then must pass a House vote, Senate vote, and finally be approved by the President. Through at least 2018, the Senate and House Majority are Republican. For context, according to the Library of Congress, the 114th Congress proposed 18,747 bills, resulting in 113 laws in the 2015-2016 session.
Read MoreThe Terrell Homes public housing project, with over 200 units situated in Newark’s Ironbound area, has again been proposed for demolition by the Newark Housing Authority, in the face of residents’ protests. The Terrell Homes is comprised of primarily black residents, who make up 10% of the 07105 zip code where the housing development sits; demolition of the units could significantly lower the proportion of black residents in the Ironbound neighborhood and therefore violate the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule.
Read MoreEquity is not just an ideal to admire. It can be defined, measured, and mapped. Visualizations are an increasingly important medium to communicate our values in a digital era. We have compiled some of the best visualizations that came our way this past year that featured measures of inequality and equity. We commend the researchers and institutions for their commitment and investment to this work.
Read MoreThe inequality that the report examines is heavily correlated with race; and the report also expounds upon how the amelioration of racial disparities would benefit not only people of color, but the District of Columbia as a whole. Specifically, the report cites the National Equity Atlas which predicted that if black and brown DC residents had income parity with white DC residents, the DC economy would have been more than $65 billion larger in 2012.
Read MoreThe presidential election that was too vulgar for us to write about, with accusations too inarticulate to describe policies, and an intimidating atmosphere of racist, nativist and sexist extremism inflaming every imaginable social division, finally received the emotional outcome it created. Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton in a historic upset destined to be known as the ultimate political demand for change. For those dedicated to working against structural inequality, this may be the transformative change we …
Read MoreFifty years ago, Martin Luther King Jr. wrote “Why We Can’t Wait“ to dispel the notion that African Americans should be content to proceed on an incremental course toward full equality under the law and in the wider society. King observed, “Three hundred years of humiliation, abuse and deprivation cannot be expected to find voice in a whisper.” Yet waiting and whispering, rather than raising their voices for genuine inclusion, is what many seem to expect of the children and grandchildren of King’s generation even today.
Read MoreWhen President Obama visited the Rutgers Law School on November 2nd, it represented the startling achievement of two dream-like goals. First was the sheer specter of the occasion—seeing our president suddenly in our home, flanked by new flags and the familiar bars that adorn our atrium’s spiral stairs. Second was the occasion itself: to meet in a roundtable with formerly incarcerated persons and then to deliver a speech intended to reverse—by executive order—one of the single greatest public policy failures in American history.
Read MoreIn this season of anniversaries, no two are more stark in their parallels than Ferguson a year after the shooting of Michael Brown and New Orleans 10 years after Hurricane Katrina killed 1,800 and displaced thousands. Both involve the senseless loss of black lives and the public horror at revelations long known in many isolated communities. Each said a lot about race relations in a country where the “postracial” election of the first black president suggested that we were too far beyond Katrina to produce Ferguson. Each also speaks of structural inequality and the idea of disappearance.
Read MorePlease join us at Rutgers University-Newark for the 2015 Equity and Opportunity Studies Fellowship culminating scholarship conference. The conference will take place on Thursday, September 24th, 2015 from 4-6:30pm in Esterly Lounge, located on the second floor of Engelhard Hall, 190 University Avenue in downtown Newark, NJ. Fellows will be presenting their year-long interdisciplinary research papers on how racial and economic inequality is reproduced to sustain geographies of relative opportunity throughout Northern New Jersey.
Read MoreThe death of Freddie Gray, a 25 year-old black man, in the custody of Baltimore police appeared to be just another suspicious death of an unarmed black person in what had become a litany. It followed the deaths of Walter Scott in South Carolina, and before him Eric Davis in Mississippi and before him Akai Gurley, John Crawford, Tamir Rice, Michael Brown and Eric Garner going back to last summer. The country was not numb to acts of apparent police brutality anymore—far from it. But we had begun to study and protest its occurrences with the conviction of …
Read MoreWhen I tried to engage a friend in a conversation about the death of Michael Brown, an unarmed 18-year-old who was shot and killed by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, my friend wearily waved his hand for me to stop. “Can’t do it,” he said politely. “It happens so often I’m inured to the pain. If I think too long about it I might just …” His voice trailed off. My friend is a black man. He is raising a black man. His response is one of three that tended to follow Saturday’s tragic news. You can either protect yourself by neutralizing your rage, as he did. You can defend your community and …
Read MoreCLiME Director Daivd Troutt will provide an overview account of government data trends at the Regional Fair Housing and Equity Assessment Workshop Friday, November 22, 2013 at the Bloustein School at Rutgers University. The workshop will bring together stakeholders and subject matter experts in the region to learn about the analysis to date and help guide the project.
Read MorePeople don’t tend to think of their lives within structures, but rather as days, relationships and places. Families seek supportive schools, reasonable commutes, quality local stores or, when they have time, nice parks to relax in. Working people worry about commutes, neighbors they can trust rather than fear and affordable tax rates. Matters of racial disparity or class differences are not common features of our everyday thoughts. We have enough to worry about meeting needs in the time available, with the people we encounter and in the places where our needs are likely to be met.
Read MoreIt’s rare to reach a point in our national sense of humor that a sitting Supreme Court justice emerges as the butt of popular jokes for comments he made during an oral argument. That’s what happened last week, however, after Justice Antonin Scalia asked lawyers defending Congress’s extension of Section 5 of the 1965 Voting Rights Act whether maintaining the pre-clearance formula for nine “covered” states, which are subject to federal oversight, was really just a “racial entitlement” program and not a constitutional necessity.
Read MoreIf Occupy Wall Street protesters and tea partiers agree on anything, it’s the loss of a stable middle class. Yet while the public debate has focused on overarching federal policies, neither group has pointed to the threat right here on the ground: the inequity of place. Real estate agents and home buyers have long known that location — where we live, learn, shop and join in community — determines most of the opportunities available to Americans. Opportunity is the touchstone to becoming a member of the middle class. As much as brains, pluck or work ethic, geography is destiny …
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