This Year's Most Inclusive Countries
Violence against transgender people, fake news, and de-democratization cited as key challenges to belonging in our 2019 Inclusiveness Index
Today we released our 2019 Inclusiveness Index, with rankings of 132 countries and all 50 US states according to policies that challenge or promote belonging, as well as supplemental highlights identifying the major trends influencing inclusion this year. As in 2017 and 2018, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Norway retained the top spots in the global index this year, although nations as diverse as Ecuador, Lesotho, and Albania also ranked in the highest category. In the US, Hawaii, Nevada, and Maryland edged out front, while Louisiana, South Dakota, and North Dakota ranked at the bottom.
From year to year, the Inclusiveness Index seeks to identify and understand changes in how nations treat their marginalized groups and how they respond to local and global phenomena, such as changing demographics as a result of migration. Check out the report, and have a look at our interactive map.
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400 Years of Resistance to Slavery Initiative Podcast Interview
The latest episode of our Who Belongs? podcast focuses on the year-long initiative at UC Berkeley marking the 400th anniversary of the start to slavery in North America. The two guests are Denise Herd, who is a professor in the School of Public Health at UC Berkeley, and the Associate Director of the Othering & Belonging Institute; and Waldo Martin, who is a professor of US History at Berkeley. Denise is leading the initiative at Berkeley, and Waldo is also involved in the organizing. Have a listen.
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New Scorecard Ranks Presidential Candidates on Race
Last week the Center for Urban and Racial Equity in collaboration with the Othering & Belonging Institute and other organizations released the 2020 Racial Justice Presidential Scorecard which analyzes presidential candidates’ policy proposals through a racial equity lens across critical areas including criminal justice reform, education, health care, voting rights, reparations, environmental justice, immigration, indigenous rights, and policies to close the racial wealth gap. The scorecard also examines candidates’ past and current rhetoric and language around racial justice issues important to communities of color. Check it out here. Also, see coverage of the scorecard in this EBONY magazine article.
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Institute Resarcher Presents Climate Refugees Report on DemocracyNow
Researcher Hossein Ayazi was interviewed by Democracy Now! last week about our recently-published report on climate refugees. Hossein explained why the world must come together to offer protections for those most vulnerable to the climate crisis. The report was also covered in The Daily Cal.
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Filmmaker Frances Causey (left) and Institute Director john a. powell speak on a panel following the screening of "The Long Shadow" documentary on Dec. 11. Click for a video of the discussion.
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News & Media
Research by Institute scholar David Card was quoted in a New York Times column, "Trump has a gift for tearing us all apart." "Given the modest economic impacts of immigration...the depth of anti-immigrant sentiment is puzzling," Card and his coauthors write.
Associate Director Denise Herd was quoted in a recent Berkeley News article about the acclaimed documentary "The Long Shadow." “The film makes us aware that living descendants of slaveholders who benefited greatly from this system have an urgent responsibility to help heal the nation,” Herd says.
Research co-authored by faculty scholar Emmanuel Saez was highlighted in a recent Business Insider article on corporate taxes.
Research by scholar Hilary Hoynes was cited in an LA Times column about Trump removing access to food stamps from 700,000 recipients. "The benefits of nutrition support can persist well into adulthood for those who have access to the program before birth and during early childhood," Hoynes is quoted as saying.
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Events
Feb. 21: Medical Bondage: Race, Gender and the Origins of American Gynecology. This talk by Deirdre Cooper Owens, an award-winning historian and popular public speaker, and Associate Professor of History at Queens College, CUNY, will focus on her upcoming books that examines mental illness during the slavery era.
Feb. 24: Imagining an Ethnography of Pregnant Class-Privileged Women of Color. In this talk, Khiara M. Bridges, a professor of law at UC Berkeley, will draw from her previous work with poor, pregnant women of color to discuss how class and race interact with, and alter, one another in the lives of wealthier, pregnant women of color in the United States.
Mar. 6: Elise C. Boddie. Professor of Law, Henry Rutgers Professor, and Judge Robert L. Carter Scholar at Rutgers Law School where she teaches constitutional law, civil rights, and state and local government law. She is an award-winning legal scholar with publications in leading law reviews.
Mar. 13: Jenifer Barclay. Barclay is an associate editor for Review of Disability Studies: An International Journal. Her current book project, The Mark of Slavery, deals with the lived experiences of enslaved people with disabilities as well as the metaphorical, ontological links that antebellum Americans forged between race, gender, and disability.
Click to see all our upcoming events.
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Fellowships & Jobs
2020 Othering & Belonging Summer Fellowship
Applications are now open for the Institute's 2020 Summer Fellowship program, which will run from May 18 to August 14, 2020. The program is a three month-long, part-time paid research experience designed to prepare the next generation of researchers and future community leaders who are committed to social and racial justice. Deadline to apply: January 31, 2020. Learn more.
Graduate Student Researcher (for Law Students)
Professor john a. powell, Director of the Othering & Belonging Institute, and Professor of Law, Ethnic and African American Studies, is seeking 2-3 law student research assistants. Learn more about the role here.
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