Karen Benjamin

If you do get a chance to read the book, please reach out to me (karen.benjamin@elmhurst.edu). Would love to hear your thoughts (especially based on your personal experiences).

Mellon Foundation The Mellon Foundation makes grants to actively unlock the power in the arts and humanities that helps connect us all.

“American Academy of Arts&Sciences reports 96.3% of humanities grads age 23-32 fully employed. Earnings in humanitiess comparable to social/life sciences, job satisfaction levels too. A serious mismatch bw actual employment for hum grads +general perception."
www.mellon.org/voices/human...

Book Forum | American Sociological Association Behind the Startup: How Venture Capital Shapes Work, Innovation, and Inequality (Session Organizer) Aaron Benanav; (Session Organizer) Sigrid Willa Luhr,

Please join a Book Forum discussion of my book Race at the Top: Asian Americans and Whites in Pursuit of the American Dream in Suburban Schools at the ASA conference in less than 2 weeks! Monday 2 pm Central I can't wait! @soceducation.bsky.social www.asanet.org/2025-annual-...

Thanks for the shout-out! 🙏

Looking forward to it!

Good Parents, Better Homes, and Great Schools | Karen Benjamin | University of North Carolina Press Good Parents, Better Homes, and Great Schools examines how white residential developers, planning consultants, and their allies in government strategically r...

@kallienebenjamin.bsky.social's Good Parents, Better Homes, and Great Schools--which tells the story of how early 20th cent. suburbanization preyed on parents' insecurities--is fabulous

I'm adding parts of it to my session on Tiebout sorting in my Politics of Ed class

uncpress.org/book/9781469...

Thanks so much! Let me know if you would like me to answer student questions over email or Zoom. It would be fun to chat with them...

Occasionally I come across an article in the foreign press that’s strikes me as so important that I want to share it with you. The following was originally written by an Israeli professor of law named Orit Kamir. https://robertreich.substack.com/p/a-betrayal-of-the-victims-of-the

We need to teach people the difference between being uncomfortable and being unsafe. Because the discomfort of the safest people is endangering the most vulnerable, all day every day.

World Central Kitchen | WCK Resumes Limited Hot Meal Service in Gaza After 5-Day Pause After a five day pause, limited cooking operations resumed today at World Central Kitchen's Deir al-Balah Field Kitchen in Gaza.  This marks the second time in 2025 our hot meal program has been force...

After a five-day halt due to a lack of supplies, our team at WCK’s Deir al-Balah Field Kitchen has resumed limited hot meal service in Gaza. #ChefsForGaza (1/3)

Consent decrees force schools to desegregate. The Trump administration is striking them down Plaquemines parish, Louisiana, will not be forced to follow the law for the first time since the 1960s

The Trump administration is allowing school districts to bypass the courts and go straight to the "justice" department to dismiss consent decrees.

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Thank you!

Blurbs by Jessica Trounstine, Noliwe Rook, and Matt Lassiter. Full text can be found at the UNC Press website: https://uncpress.org/book/9781469684949/good-parents-better-homes-and-great-schools/

Blurbs by Judith Kafka, Richard Rothstein, Tracy Steffes, and Betsy Herbin-Triant. Full text can be found at the UNC Press website: https://uncpress.org/book/9781469684949/good-parents-better-homes-and-great-schools/

I am so grateful to Betsy Herbin-Triant, Judith Kafka, Matt Lassiter, Noliwe Rook, Richard Rothstein, Tracy Steffes, and Jessica Trounstine for their generous words of support. Thanks for reminding me that our work remains relevant and important, despite the five-alarm fire this year has been.

⚠️ New timely WP ⚠️ Rising wealth inequality and democratic backsliding at the US state-level #EconSky #Sociology #PolicySky
@stone-lis.bsky.social WP here: doi.org/10.31235/osf...

Agree. Agree. Agree. We need to help people understand that this doesn't work for anyone.

In the US, white middle-class suburbanites made this work through economic and racial segregation. The service cuts were for someone else.

Yes, but the service cuts are for someone else.

Thanks @americanstudier.bsky.social for spotlighting Together in Manzanar! Loved reading about other new work too, esp. @kallienebenjamin.bsky.social on segregation, @pdtoler.bsky.social on Gibson Girls & @adamlaats.bsky.social on Scopes & school optouts americanstudier.substack.com/p/scholarsun...

#ScholarSunday Thread 234 Shared on July 20, 2025

Here it is, my 234th #ScholarSunday thread of great public scholarly writing & work, podcast episodes, new & forthcoming books from the last week. Add more below, please share as widely as possible, & enjoy, all! 🗃️

americanstudier.substack.com/p/scholarsun...

LFJ relaunches podcast to resist alterations of ‘hard history’ The Southern Poverty Law Center’s Learning for Justice (LFJ) program is relaunching the Teaching Hard History podcast series — with host Hasan Kwame Jeffries — to resist current efforts aimed at alter...

The Southern Poverty Law Center’s Learning for Justice (LFJ) program is relaunching the Teaching Hard History podcast series — with host Hasan Kwame Jeffries — to resist current efforts aimed at altering our nation’s history. www.splcenter.org/resources/ho...

‘Repossessions’ Exhibit Debuts at California African American Museum - Los Angeles Sentinel “Repossessions” debuted at the California African American Museum on February 14 and closes on August 3.

“Repossessions,” an exhibit at the California African American Museum, is “inspired by the effort to repair the economic and psychological devastation caused by slavery for descendants of enslaved African Americans,” and funded by The Reparations Project. lasentinel.net/repossession...

Seriously so excited about this cover. Can’t wait til I can hold it in my hands!

Why doesn’t Baltimore County have any public pools? Blame segregation. There are no public pools in Baltimore County. Nearly 70 years after the Supreme Court's Brown decision overturning the "separate but equal" principle, some attribute this to the legacy of segregation.

Why doesn’t Baltimore County have any public pools? Blame segregation.

Thanks Ellie (and Tuffy)! Can't wait to hear your thoughts on the book!

Tuffy and I could not wait! @kallienebenjamin.bsky.social @uncpress.bsky.social

New This Week: July 15th - UNC Press Blog How did white residential developers, planning consultants, and their allies in government strategically replaced block-level segregation with segregation at the neighborhood level in New South cities...

Have you checked out today's new release? GOOD PARENTS, BETTER HOMES, & GREAT SCHOOLS by @kallienebenjamin.bsky.social adds a new dimension to the history of residential segregation but also helps explain why that legacy has been so difficult to undo 👇

uncpressblog.com/2025/07/15/n...

Last July - almost a full year ago - I wrote how Project 2025's goal of dismantling the Department of Education would lead to the massive retrenchment of segregated schooling across the country.

Today is a really awful day.

www.mississippifreepress.org/opinion-proj...

I wrote a little about automobiles, the AJC, and parenting in metro Atlanta
safersandysprings.blogspot.com/2025/05/top-...

Robert Smalls statue first on SC Capitol complex to honor individual African American More than 100 years after his death, Robert Smalls — a Civil War hero, educator and South Carolina politician — will be honored with a statue on the Statehouse grounds.

Robert Smalls' statue is the first on the South Carolina Capitol complex to honor an individual African American.
www.southcarolinapublicradio.org/sc-news/2025... Most statues on statehouse grounds are of white men, mostly with supporters of the Confederacy and the Jim Crow apartheid system.

This was such a great conference — and a reminder that there are tremendous, untapped opportunities for cross-disciplinary dialogue between law, history, political science, and public administration