معرفی
William A. Darity Jr. ('Sandy') is the Samuel DuBois Cook Distinguished Professor of Public Policy at Duke University's Sanford School of Public Policy, with joint appointments in African and African American Studies and Economics. He serves as director of the Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity and is an affiliate of the Duke Initiative for Science & Society. Previously, he held leadership positions including chair of the Department of African and African American Studies at Duke and director of Graduate Studies at UNC Chapel Hill.
Darity's research centers on racial and economic inequality, with particular focus on stratification economics, reparations, the racial wealth gap, labor market outcomes by skin shade, the Atlantic slave trade's economic impact, and the social psychological effects of unemployment. His work bridges economics, public policy, and social justice, examining how structural inequalities persist across generations and how policy interventions might address them. He has developed the theoretical framework of stratification economics to explain intergroup inequality beyond traditional market-based discrimination models.
His publications reveal a consistent focus on racial economic disparities, with recent work examining reparations policy implementation (2024-2025), Latinx stratification economics (2024), and the century-long impacts of events like the Tulsa Massacre (2024). His scholarship spans theoretical economics, empirical analysis of racial disparities, and policy proposals for addressing systemic inequality.
- Samuel Z. Westerfield Award (2012)
- American Academy of Arts and Sciences Member (2025)
- Distinguished Fellow, American Economic Association (2024)
- Politico 50 recognition (2017)
- Award from Global Policy Solutions (2017)
- President of National Economic Association
- President of Southern Economic Association
Darity has advised numerous PhD students throughout his career and has secured significant research funding, including grants focused on reparations, wealth inequality, and structural barriers to economic inclusion. His current projects include the Samuel DuBois Cook Center's research on racial and economic inequality and the ARC of Justice podcast series exploring racial economic inequality. He has served as Editor in Chief of the International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences and co-authored the influential book 'From Here to Equality: Reparations for Black Americans in the Twenty-First Century' with A. Kirsten Mullen.
