Defining Structural and Systemic Racism: Conceptualizations, Measurement, and Policy Implications
Open to Everyone
This talk explores new ways of making sense of racism as it operates across institutions and systems. The presentation highlights emerging ideas that sharpen how scholars and practitioners might define, study, and respond to racial inequities. By tracing connections between theory, measurement, and policy, the discussion invites participants to consider what becomes possible when we approach racism with greater conceptual clarity. The goal is not just to revisit old debates, but to spark a forward-looking conversation about how definitions shape research design, intervention, and social change.
About the Speaker
Darnell Leatherwood is a President’s Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Michigan. His research examines the structural and systemic features of U.S. public schools and districts that promote academic excellence among students. He also serves as a Senior Research Affiliate at the Institute for Critical Quantitative, Computational, and Mixed Methodologies (ICQCM) at Johns Hopkins University, and Program Chair of the Critical Quantitative Methodologies SIG in the American Educational Research Association (AERA).
His previous roles include National Institutes of Health Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Johns Hopkins University, Lecturer at the University of Chicago, Visiting Faculty at Saint Louis University, Senior Quantitative Research Fellow at the Joseph C. Cornwall Center for Metropolitan Studies at Rutgers University, and most recently Professor of Research in the Office of Educational Research at Louisiana State University. He is also a former National Science Foundation Fellow in Advanced Quantitative Research Methods at the University of Chicago/Michigan State University and an Expert Mentor for the iVenture Accelerator at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Darnell is a Faculty Affiliate at the University of Michigan’s Center for Equitable Family and Community Well-Being and serves on a number of boards, including the Matteson School District 162 Board of Education (publicly elected office), the editorial board of The Journal of Negro Education at Howard University, and the Board of Directors for Brilliance and Excellence (the Backbone Organization for the Obama Foundation’s My Brother’s Keeper Action Team in Chicago; MBK Chicago). As a scholar-entrepreneur, he is the founder of the Black Male Educators Alliance of Illinois (BMEAIllinois) and the Black Boys Shine campaign (501(c)(3)). He also ran for U.S. Congress in 2020 (IL-1).
Darnell holds a Ph.D. in Social Policy and Social Welfare, a Certificate in Education Sciences, and an M.A. in the Social Sciences from the University of Chicago, along with a B.S. in Management (with concentrations in Entrepreneurship and Business Process Management) from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.