In the News

Dr. Kierra Barnett, Post-Doctoral Researcher at the Kirwan Institute, recently co-authored a study exploring the impact of HBCU attendance on the health of African Americans (following graduation).

Kirwan Institute's Senior Legal Analyst Kyle Strickland was just named as one of ColumbusCEO's Future 50 Class of 2021. This recognition is reserved for the most passionate and hard-working advocates and professionals in the Columbus community - those focused on improving Central Ohio and our world. The 2021 class will be recognized in a special issue of ColumbusCEO to be released in January. From there, all members will begin work on an annual community project of their choosing.

Photo Cred: Julie Fulton/Columbus Dispatch The Kirwan Institute, led by Senior Research Associate Glennon Sweeney,  is partnering with the Franklin County Auditor's Office to help eliminate disparities and inequalities in the appraisal process.  "On Monday, Auditor Michael Stinziano and researchers from the Columbus-based Kirwan Institute held the Making of Metropolitan Inequality conference, the first of a two-part series aimed at discussing the policies that created redlined communities and suggestions on what’s next. " - The Columbus Dispatch

This event is hosted by Moritz College of Law. This is not a Kirwan Institute sponsored event.

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Racial inequalities in the children-services system are not a new problem, but recent civil unrest around the country is helping to shed light on the issue.  Compared with their White peers, Black children are more likely to linger in foster care, less likely to find a permanent home and more likely to be placed in an institutional setting. Robin Reese, director at Lucas County Children Services, said they are focusing on prevention as they work to reduce disparities.   

In rural Fairfield County, Ohio, just outside downtown Millersport, a nine-year-old boy named Elijah Monroe held up a sign on the side of the road that read, “Justice for George.” 

Jon Bozeka was joined by Kyle Strickland, who is the Senior Legal Analyst at the Kirwan Institute for the study of race & ethnicity at OSU. He spoke about the change we really need to see when it comes to race relations. Listen to the full interview here.

Starting in April, the federal government provided $600 weekly payments to unemployed workers in addition to state jobless benefits, smoothing sharp differences between more and less generous states. It also broadly expanded who qualified, removing barriers for lower-wage, seasonal and gig workers, who are typically excluded from aid.

Things have always been busy at the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity, a research-centered arm of Ohio State. But ever since global protests erupted following the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police, and the ensuing conversations about racism that have taken place at the individual and societal levels, the Kirwan staff has been fielding requests nonstop.

Kirwan Institute Darrick Hamilton was a guest on a recent episode of  'Planet Money.' 

By Mary Schlanden, Columbus Dispatch For ethnic and religious minorities, American culture hasn’t always been welcoming. Earlier this month, they got a painful reminder when they turned on the televisions to see Klansmen and neo-Nazis marching in a torch-lit parade and chanting anti-Semitic slogans. Eventually one of their number ran his car into a crowd of counter-protestors, killing one.

By E. Anne York, The Conversation Workplace biases are back in the national conversation, thanks to the recent memo by a Google employee. The memo’s author challenges the company’s diversity policies, arguing that psychological differences between men and women explain why fewer women work in tech.

Now that you’re settling into the reality that the images we saw from Charlottesville were from 2017 and not the days of Jim Crow, it’s time to get proactive about parenting during the Trump Era. Though you might have hoped that your children would grow up in a different world from where you came from, the swamp has arisen and racism, anti-Semitism, xenophobia, Islamophobia, homophobia, transphobia and misogyny are alive and slithering along the ground.

By Kirwan Researchers: Kierra S. Barnett, Glennon Sweeney, and Mikyung Baek for The BLOCK Project

By Phillip Rojc, Inside Philanthropy, For a long time, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation has been a steadfast philanthropic leader in the push for a more equitable society—and one that isn’t afraid to address race directly. In fact, it’s hard to think of a major foundation that’s invested more thought, energy and grant money in this area than Kellogg.

By Terry Mikesell, Columbus Dispatch, To get to her job at the Mall at Fairfield Commons in Beavercreek, a pregnant woman used to ride the public bus system from her home to Wright State University, then walk a mile at night across a busy multilane overpass that intersects Fairfield Road with Interstate 675 near Dayton. No bus stops were available at the mall. “She took her life in her hands to go to work,” Wilma Righter, a member of Leaders for Equality & Action in Dayton (LEAD), explains in recounting the woman’s story in “Free To Ride.”

By Rita Price, Columbus Dispatch Though the Weinland Park survey focused on residents’ perceptions, it also includes demographic data. The overall makeup of Weinland Park’s 4,400 residents didn’t change much in six years — a little more than half the residents are black and nearly 90 percent are renters. Still, “There are very different groups with very different types of stories to tell,” said Zachary Kenitzer, a researcher with OSU’s Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity, who led the survey project.

By Hope Madden, Columbus Underground, Bussing has been an issue of civil rights from the beginning, but is there still social relevance in the topic? Jamaal Bell of The Ohio State University’s Kirwan Institute says yes. Along with producer/writer Matt Martin, Bell made the documentary Free to Ride. His film explores a precedent-setting achievement. Simply installing three bus stops between Dayton and Beavercreek, Ohio made history.

By Antonia Ayres-Brown, Toledo Blade,  Not long after the Rev. Otis Gordon arrived in Toledo approximately 14 years ago, a Ku Klux Klan-affiliated group held a rally in the city. What the Rev. Gordon remembers most about the event is the way Toledo residents rallied to organize a counter-protest. “We could not prevent them from having an opportunity to voice their opinions, but we did not have to accept that,” he said.

By JoAnne Viviano and Mark Ferenchik, Columbus Dispatch, Columbus city attorneys and public-health officials are preparing dozens of court cases against landlords who haven’t removed hazardous lead paint from their properties despite city orders. Some orders have languished for six years.