In a new report, Yusra Murad, a researcher and organizer, and Jamila Michener, director of the Center, show how the tenant organizing movement is building collective power among tenants and disrupting assumptions about the racial wealth gap by shifting narratives to decouple property ownership and power.

Five faculty fellows from across three colleges and five departments will receive dedicated support and funding from the Center to pursue innovative and creative projects that stem from faculty research and teaching, and which connect to the mission of the Center to create more just and equitable futures.

In this article, Neil Lewis, Jr., associate director at the Center, raises questions about the utility of aggregating poll data for policymaking, given what social and behavioral scientists have learned about the fragmentation of (American) democracy and its implications for heterogeneity in people’s experiences.

Jamila Michener, director at the Center, takes a close look at Minnesota through the lens of “preemption”—both harmful and positive—to understand ways that state and local governments can cultivate grassroots power to protect against democratic erosion in times of authoritarian governance.

Jillian Morley, research support specialist at the Center, examines working conditions in the solar industry in New York and Texas with co-writer Avalon Hoek Spaans in the new research volume The Climate-Labor Movement: Lessons Learned and the Promise of an Equitable and Diverse Clean Energy Economy.

Anthony Burrow, RJEF advisory group member, has received a major grant that will fund a National Youth Purpose Survey to understand how young people develop and experience a sense of purpose.

In the wake of Medicare and Medicaid’s 60th anniversary, Health Affairs’ Jeff Byers speaks with Jamila Michener of Cornell University to discuss her recent Forefront article on organized power and its impact on the future of Medicaid.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBB) passed in July 2025 could reduce Medicaid enrollment by nearly eight million in less than a decade. This is is the most significant retrenchment in Medicaid’s 60-year history, but it did not emerge spontaneously or surreptitiously.

Although U.S. health disparities are well-documented, the very communities that bear the brunt of those disparities are, ironically, underrepresented in scientific efforts to understand and address them. By prioritizing the perspectives of White Americans, studies of pandemic disparities likely missed important insights.

A new study investigates the numerous harms of discrimination, which “may leave individuals feeling derailed or disconnected from one’s past self.” Researchers show how daily discrimination, even in periods as short as two weeks, can impact one’s sense of purpose and lead to overall poorer health.