Welcome to a new biannual newsletter on race and public policy insights from Harvard Kennedy School. The Kennedy School is helping to advance knowledge on how policy and race intersect in areas ranging from criminal justice reform to education to health policy to bias in technology and more. 

FAIRNESS & JUSTICE

To make juries more impartial, diversify the jury pool

Researchers for the Roundtable on Racial Disparities in Massachusetts Criminal Courts are investigating ways to improve representation on juries, including expanding jury selection to include formerly incarcerated people, a group that disproportionately includes people of color. Professor Sandra Susan Smith is the director of the Kennedy School’s Program in Criminal Justice and Management and organizes the Roundtable. “Research reveals that the lack of diversity in the jury pool and the jury box has negative consequences for Black and Brown people with cases before the court. Indeed, during the last few years, multiple convictions have been reversed by Massachusetts’ Supreme Judicial Court based on allegations of racial bias in jury selection—prosecutors removing jurors of color at higher rates than white jurors, often through peremptory strikes or for cause challenges,” Smith says. “Research makes clear that diverse juries are better juries.” 

Also see: Assistant Professor Yanilda González and colleagues on how civic society can bring an end to a global police violence problem. 

HEALTH

Understanding the lack of racial diversity in clinical trials

Black Americans are underrepresented in medical trials, which might cause worse health outcomes for this group. New research by Professor Marcella Alsan and co-authors probes the lack of racial diversity in clinical trials. They find that when prospective Black participants know that the researcher is Black, they are more likely to take part in medical studies. However, fewer than 4% of researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health are Black. The authors write, “part of building trust is increasing the opportunity for members of underrepresented groups to be in positions of authority, including as principal investigators and physicians.”  

Also see: Research by Associate Professor Elizabeth Linos and co-authors indicates that Black women may have worse career outcomes when their teams have a greater share of white colleagues.

EDUCATION, TRAINING & LABOR

Research suggests selective colleges’ legacy policies harm Asian Americans’ admissions chances

HKS Professor Sharad Goel and coauthors studied almost 700,000 college applications over a five-year period. Their results suggest that children of alumni—who are more likely to be white—have a distinct advantage. Asian American students are 28% less likely to be admitted to selective colleges and universities than white students with similar academic qualifications, according to Goel’s research. Students of South Asian descent are 49% less likely to be admitted. 

ADVOCACY & SOCIAL MOVEMENTS

Teaching students to address social injustices

Callie House, a pioneering civil rights leader at the turn of the 20th century, founded the National Ex-Slave Mutual Relief, Bounty, and Pension Association and was later wrongfully imprisoned. Professor of Practice Cornell Williams Brooks focused on House in his course “Creating Justice in Real Time: Vision, Strategies and Campaigns.” In the course, Harvard students collaborated with the Trotter Collaborative for Social Justice and the Harvard Law School Criminal Justice Institute to posthumously right the wrongs suffered by House. The project culminated in a petition to the federal government to pardon House. 

Also see: Celebrating the legacy of Callie House.