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Building on an idea developed and long championed by economists Darrick Hamilton and William “Sandy” Darity Jr., as well as 15 years of practice and research around children’s savings programs, A Birthright to Capital outlines the case for why the United States government should provide an account, with up to $60,000 held in public trust, to every one of the four million children born each year in the United States, and why this economic right to wealth, often referred to as a Baby Bond or a Baby Trust, should be calibrated to the economic position of a child’s family.

This is a joint publication between the Center for American Progress and the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at The Ohio State University, The column was co-authored with Darrick Hamilton of the Kirwan Institute. Author's Note: CAP uses "Black and African American" interchangeably throughout many of our products. We chose to capitalize "Black" in order to reflect that we are discussing a group of people and to be consistent with the capitalization of "African-American."

The deep and persistent racial wealth divide will not close without bold, structural reform. The racial wealth divide is greater today than it was nearly four decades ago, and trends point to its continued widening.

The US economy has been structured by rules that either privilege or exploit people based on their race. Our nation’s legacy of implicit and explicit racial exclusions continue to have a deep impact on who is able to meaningfully participate and profit in the current American economy and who is left behind.

The Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS), the federal agency for volunteering and service, has awarded the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race & Ethnicity a three-year grant of more than $450,000 for 10 AmeriCorps VISTA members to support the work of My Brother’s Keeper Ohio (MBK Ohio).

Kirwan’s own Lena Tenney was featured in the National Association of Financial Aid Administrators NASFAA Annual Impact Report. Click here to read the article, titled “did they really just say that?!”  

The Kirwan Institute would like to thank our partners, funders and collaborators for their support of our work over the last 15 years.

The opiate epidemic is creating a new conversation around drug policy and criminal reform efforts across the country. Opioid related overdose deaths have hit a critical point and have begun to reach traditionally unaffected communities. As communities wrestle with overburdened jails and prisons and insufficient mental health and drug treatment facilities, policymakers and the public are challenging the strategy of criminalization utilized during the last 40 years of the War on Drugs.

By Jonathan Branfman PhD Candidate & Instructor in Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies

By Sahra Ahmed

By Preshuslee Thompson Part 1

By Abel Koury

“Oooooo his hair is like mine,” I heard a wide-eyed, mahogany-skin faced little boy whisper to his friend as I passed them. His words eased some of my anxiety as I entered an unfamiliar school, in an unfamiliar state, with an unfamiliar task, that often felt unattainable. As a way to end the school-to-prison pipeline, I was to coordinate a mentoring research program for the “at-risk” Black male students at a low-income serving elementary school. I knew a major reason I had gotten the position was because I was a Black male, but I knew that would not be enough.

 

Mapping the Policy Landscape and Equity Impact At the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity, our research and engagement supports the mission of ensuring that all people and communities have the opportunity to succeed. This call to promote opportunities for future success is never more important than within our education systems. As a society, we must look to policies and practices that can support our youngest citizens and support families that are most in need.

By Kip Holley In 2008, then presidential candidate Barack Obama brought forth a new group of voters to the polls. These voters—primarily made up of women of color and those living in poverty—helped to propel him to the presidency in 2008 and to re-election four years later.

Renewing Our Call to Action responds to the October 2015 Youth Perspective Report completed by the City of Columbus to support their expanding work in the My Brother’s Keeper Initiative.

The release of the 2017 State of the Science: Implicit Bias Review comes at a very important time. More than ever, Kirwan and our partners in equity work can see the importance of how we shape the narrative of race and equity in this country. For the last five years, the State of the Science has been one of the ways that we have been able to add depth to this often one-sided narrative, by pointing to the complex underpinnings of how peoples’ conception of race influences our perceptions, thoughts, and relationships.

The Work of Financial Justice is as Important as Ever This past month marked the ten year anniversary of the onset of the Great Recession.