Racism in America

Erica Groshen is Senior Economics Advisor in the ILR Labor Dynamics Institute in Cornell’s ILR School and research fellow at the Upjohn Institute for Employment Research. From 2013 to 2017, she served as the 14th commissioner of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the principal federal agency responsible for measuring labor market activity, working conditions, and inflation. Before that, Dr. Groshen was vice president in the Research and Statistics Group of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Her research has centered on jobless recoveries, wage rigidity and dispersion, and the role of employers in the labor market.

Dr. Groshen is the lead author of “Preparing U.S. Workers and Employers for an Autonomous Vehicle Future,” with Susan Helper, John Paul MacDuffie, and Charles Carson. She also co-authored “How New is the ‘New Employment Contract’?” from W.E. Upjohn Institute Press and co-edited “Structural Changes in U.S. Labor Markets: Causes and Consequences” from M.E. Sharpe, Inc. Dr. Groshen received the 2017 Susan C. Eaton Outstanding Scholar-Practitioner Award from the Labor and Employment Relations Association. She holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Harvard University and a B.S. in Mathematics and Economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Lawrence Glickman is the Stephen and Evalyn Milman Professor of American Studies in the Department of History in the College of Arts & Sciences. He is a core faculty member in the History of Capitalism Initiative and the author or editor of five books, including “Free Enterprise: An American History” (2019) and “Buying Power: A History of Consumer Activism in America” (2009). Professor Glickman also writes on public affairs for The Atlantic, Washington Post, Boston Review, Dissent, and other periodicals. At Cornell, he teaches a popular course on “Sports and Politics in American History” and has co-taught, with Professor Edward E. Baptist, “The History of American Capitalism” as well as a variety of lecture and seminar courses on political, cultural, and intellectual history. Professor Glickman frequently comments on history and the media on Twitter at @larryglickman.

Riché Richardson, who was born and raised in Montgomery, Alabama, is an Associate Professor of African American Literature in the Africana Studies & Research Center at Cornell University. Her other areas of interest include American literature, American studies, Black feminism, gender studies, and Southern studies. She was the 2019-2020 Olive B. O’Connor Visiting Distinguished Chair in English at Colgate University. Dr. Richardson received her B.A. in English from Spelman College in 1993 and her Ph.D. in American Literature from the English Department at Duke University in 1998. In 2001, she received a Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship.

Dr. Richardson spent the first ten years of her academic career in the University of California system at UC Davis and received a Davis Humanities Institute Fellowship (2002) as well as an award from the university for Diversity and the Principles of Community (2008). She has produced nearly 40 essays published in journals such as American Literature, Mississippi Quarterly, Forum for Modern Language Studies, Black Renaissance/Renaissance Noire, TransAtlantica, Southern Quarterly, Black Camera, NKA, Phillis, Technoculture, and Labrys. Dr. Richardson is a 2017 Public Voices Fellow with the Op-Ed Project, whose pieces have appeared in the New York Times, Public Books, and HuffPost. “Black Masculinity and the U.S. South: From Uncle Tom to Gangsta” was highlighted by Choice Books among the Outstanding Academic Titles of 2008, and her most recent book is “Emancipation’s Daughters: Re-Imagining the National Body and Black Femininity,” published by Duke University Press. Dr. Richardson is editor of the “New Southern Studies” book series at the University of Georgia Press and is also a visual artist.

Tejasvi Nagaraja is Assistant Professor of History at Cornell University’s ILR School. His research explores the intersections of U.S. labor and African American and foreign relations history. Professor Nagaraja is writing a book about America’s World War II experience and generation, reconstructing a far-flung war within the war — among Americans themselves. This transnational story weaves military-industrial labor battles, Black soldiers’ protests against policing and incarceration, and veterans’ debates about America’s role in the world. Professor Nagaraja earned his Ph.D. from New York University and has held fellowships at Harvard University, the New School, and the New York Historical Society. His writing has been published in the journal American Historical Review.

Tracy Jan covers the intersection of race and the economy for The Washington Post, a beat she launched in December 2016 that encompasses racial economic disparities, immigration, housing policy, and other stories that hold businesses and politicians accountable for their decisions and promises. Her work has delved deeply into reparations for slavery, systemic racism in America, and the economic and health impact of the coronavirus pandemic on Black, Asian, Latino, and immigrant communities. 

Ms. Jan previously was a Washington-based national political reporter for the Boston Globe, where she covered the 2016 and 2012 presidential campaigns, the impact of policy and political rhetoric on voters and communities across the country, and lobbying by New England’s hospitals and universities. During her 12 years at the Globe, she had also written about health and science policy, higher education, and Boston public schools. Ms. Jan started her career as a crime and courts reporter at The Oregonian after receiving her Bachelor’s degree in Communication and Master’s degree in Sociology from Stanford University. She was a Knight-Wallace Fellow at the University of Michigan, as well as a Fulbright Fellow in Taiwan. Ms. Jan has reported from Taipei, Beijing, Tibet, and along the Yangtze River.