Panel Discussion: “Institutional Racism: The Sociology of Race and Organizations”

, Petteruti Lounge, Room 201

This event brings together three scholars working at the intersection of the sociology of race and the sociology of organizations to discuss how organizations “do” race and their role in producing or contesting racial inequality. The panelists will discuss how to conceptualize organizations as “racialized,” and how these forces shape everything from college student protests to prisoner re-entry.

A CSREA Faculty Grant Event: Daniel Hirschman, Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology.
Cosponsored by the Taubman Center for American Politics and Policy.

Speakers

Ellen Berrey is an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Toronto and an affiliated scholar of the American Bar Foundation. Her research explores the cultural dynamics of inequality, race, law, and organizations. Her first book, The Enigma of Diversity: The Language of Race and the Limits of Racial Justice is a multi-case ethnographic and historical analysis. In it, she argues that the popular public commitment to “diversity” in the U.S. represents the taming of radical demands for racial justice. She is also the author ofRights on Trial: How Employment Discrimination Law Perpetuates Inequality with Robert Nelson and Laura Beth Nielsen. Her new projects explore affirmative action in U.S. college admissions, social entrepreneurship, and the right-wing populist movement against sustainability planning.

Victor Ray is an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. His research examines race and gender discrimination in organizations, including work on the U.S. military as a racialized organization. He is the editor of the blog “Conditionally Accepted” at Inside Higher Education, which foregrounds the experiences of marginalized graduate students and faculty. His commentary has appeared at Newsweek, Boston Review, and Gawker.

Lucius Couloute is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He will begin a tenure-track appointment at Suffolk University in the Fall of 2019. His primary research interests involve race and racism, employment, organizations, and systems of criminalization. Lucius’ published and forthcoming research examines how organizations both produce and experience racial inequality. His in-progress work explores both the ideological forces and structural barriers contributing to a local prisoner reentry field.