This course is a 6-week module that follows on DPI385M. It covers a range of topics related to the history of racial issues as well as policies and practices in contemporary society. First year MPP students can select among the following three options.
Section A: Louise Seamster. Environmental Racism. This class takes a broad view of the concept of environmental racism to consider multiple aspects of how racism takes place. Rather than focus on disparities in outcomes, the course will focus primarily on processes that produce those outcomes, working with themes of resource extraction, dynamics of both exclusion and inclusion, community formation, and place-based violence. We also dissect how the value of a place is constructed (and destroyed), and what this has to do with the construction and development of place and communities. We focus primarily on the local level, but consider how different levels of governance are implicated in these processes, and make domestic and global comparisons.
Sections B and C: Cornell William Brooks. Justice, Advocacy, and You: Race and Crime as a Case Study. Grounded in theory and practice, this module seeks to equip students with advocacy strategies to end systemic racism. Using the criminal legal system as a case study (solitary confinement, death penalty, school to prison pipeline, etc.), students study successful movements and case studies, economic and moral arguments, legislative/legal advocacy strategies and campaigns, data and storytelling, as well as history to develop their own campaigns to address today’s injustices. These strategies are useful in the public and private sector as well as and in a wide variety of social justice contexts.
Section D: Desmond Ang. Racial Inequality in the U.S.: An Empirical Perspective. This module seeks to provide a broad empirical understanding of the causes and consequences of racial inequality in America across a range of domains - from housing and education to criminal justice and labor markets. Students will learn about the state of racial inequality today and historically and will gain the analytical skills necessary to unpack the drivers of those trends. Throughout the course, students will engage with and critically evaluate leading quantitative research examining the real-world impacts of a range of public policies relevant to racial inequality.
This course is required of all MPP1 students.
