Race and Regulation Podcast Series

During the summer of 2022, the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School will host “Race and Regulation,” a podcast series that will focus on the most fundamental responsibility of any society: ensuring equal justice, dignity, and respect to all people. Organized by the Penn Program on Regulation (PPR), the series will feature leading scholars who will uncover how government regulations across a wide range of areas – including voting rights, child welfare, banking, land use, and more – have contributed to racial inequities, as well as how regulatory changes could help build a more just society.

The series launched May 25, 2022 with the first three episodes, and new episodes will be released around every two weeks throughout the summer of 2022.

“Regulation has served to structure and reinforce racism in society, but when designed well it can also in principle serve as a tool for combatting racism,” said Cary Coglianese, Director of PPR and Edward B. Shils Professor of Law and Professor of Political Science. “Through this podcast series, we aim to illuminate important connections between race and regulation so as to improve public understanding of these vital issues and help society on the path toward racial justice.”

Listeners will hear from some of today’s foremost experts working on issues at the intersection of law, race, and public policy: Dorothy E. Roberts (George A. Weiss University Professor of Law and Sociology and the Raymond Pace and Sadie Tanner Mossell Alexander Professor of Civil Rights at Penn Carey Law), Chris Brummer (Georgetown), Jessica Trounstine (UC-Merced), Guy-Uriel Charles (Harvard), Anita L. Allen (Henry R. Silverman Professor of Law and Professor of Philosophy at Penn Carey Law), Jill A. Fisher (UNC-Chapel Hill), Ming Hsu Chen (California), Olatunde C. Johnson (Columbia), Brian D. Feinstein (Assistant Professor of Legal Studies & Business Ethics at the Wharton School), and Daniel E. Ho (Stanford).

Hosted by Coglianese, episodes draw on lectures delivered in a 2021-2022 lecture series on race and regulation at the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School, the full versions of which can be found at PPR’s YouTube channel.

The podcast is produced by Patty McMahon and includes music by Philadelphia-based artist, Joy Ike. It also builds on two online symposiums organized by The Regulatory Review, PPR’s online publication: “Racism, Regulation, and the Administrative State” and “Race and Regulation.”

The first three episodes:

Dorothy E. Roberts (Penn) – Black Families Matter

Drawing on her latest book, Torn Apart: How the Child Welfare System Destroys Black Families – And How Abolition Can Build a Safer World, law and sociology expert Dorothy Roberts examines the fundamental racism of the child welfare system, which she argues regulates families in ways that disproportionately and negatively affect people of color. She explains why this system of family regulation should be dismantled and replaced with one that better protects children.

Chris Brummer (Georgetown) – Why Are There So Few Black Financial Regulators?

For generations, regardless of which party has controlled the White House, Black leaders have been virtually absent across the federal government’s financial regulatory bodies – a state of affairs that has severely limited the representation of Black communities and their interests in financial policy decisions and reinforced the racial wealth gap in the United States. Chris Brummer of Georgetown Law discusses why longstanding racial disparities in financial regulatory leadership continue even today – and what changes might be required to overcome them.

Jessica Trounstine (UC-Merced) – Redlined Forever?

Racial segregation in American cities is no accident. Building on research from her award-winning book, Segregation by Design, political scientist Jessica Trounstine of UC-Merced examines how local land use regulations aimed at protecting the property values of white homeowners have generated segregation across racial and class lines that persists today – and how that segregation brings serious inequities in access to quality schools and public amenities. But just as segregation resulted from policy choices, Trounstine shows how desegregation can be a purposeful choice, too, with the right regulatory decisions.

Learn more about the PPR’s Race and Regulation podcast series.