Matthew Clair

About 30 or so Stanford students and faculty eating lunch. A slideshow of books published in the Stanford Sociology Department are displayed on a screen in the background

Prof. Michelle Jackson and Prof. Gi-Wook Shin hold up cupcakes with images of their book covers on top of the icing. Physical copies of their books are in the foreground. A slideshow of other recently published books in the Stanford Sociology Department are in the background

At this week's community lunch, we celebrated faculty books published in the last 5 years, covering a range of social issues from immigration and criminal justice to the division of labor in society and economic development in the Asia-Pacific region.

Front cover of The Division of Rationalized Labor. The cover includes four pictures: pen and paper, microscope, factory tower, police badge. Modern-looking yellow lines and graphs are superimposed.

My new book, The Division of Rationalized Labor, is now shipping! A brief summary of the argument to follow…

Minneapolis Knows How to Resist This Violence From George Floyd to Renee Good, the city has become all too familiar with fatal violence by law enforcement—and it knows exactly how to respond.

I tried to turn my rage yesterday into something that brings us some light. For @newrepublic.com, I wrote about how 2020 prepared Minneapolis for the current crisis of Trump's DHS. newrepublic.com/article/2050...

It is EXHAUSTING not only being made responsible for coming up with new kinds of assignments for our students; it's also tedious reading op-eds that suggest the core problem is a crisis in teaching. But, as Chris and I lay out here, this isn't a crisis in teaching; it's an attack on learning.

Inequality and moral meaning-making in the admissions consulting profession Abstract. Prior research has described how middle-class and affluent families draw on private supplemental educational resources to help their children mai

New in @socprobsjournal.bsky.social w/ @estelabdiaz.bsky.social: the rapid growth of the admissions consulting industry has raised questions about inequality, privilege, and merit. We combine two original data sources to ask how consultants make sense of their work.
academic.oup.com/socpro/advan...

@npr it’s not a principle. It is a constitutional guarantee.

A wonderful fellowship opportunity for criminal legal scholars at Penn Law. JDs and PhDs are eligible. Apply!

bsky.app/profile/quat...

Former Quattrone Center Fellow @mathuclair.bsky.social shares how the fellowship supported the fieldwork for his book, expanded his network, and shaped his career. If you’re doing justice-focused research, he says: apply!

Deadline: December 31

Learn more + apply: www.law.upenn.edu/institutes/q...

2-yr postdoc opportunity in @ndsociology.bsky.social at the Center for Research on Educational Opportunity (CREO). iei.nd.edu/initiatives/...

Voters Ousted This Pennsylvania Sheriff After He Signed Up to Collaborate With ICE - Bolts A populous, swing county replaced its GOP sheriff on Tuesday after months of controversy over his joining ICE’s 287(g) program. The Democratic winner promises he’ll end the contract.

A Republican sheriff in a swing county that Trump won by 0.1% signed a contract to help ICE, then lost last week by 11.

New by me in @boltsmag.org: boltsmag.org/sheriff-of-b...

⚡️Coming soon: a special symposium on Du Bois’s Black Reconstruction at 90 organized by @alimeghji.bsky.social & Jose Itzigsohn! Early look at my piece here:

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Paid summer research opportunity for undergraduates at MIT. Applicants must be undergraduates at a USA institution. Deadline: Jan 20. Info sessions: 11/6 and 12/10 - mit.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

**Please Share**

Republicans Really Don’t Want Journalists Talking About How They’ve Captured the Courts Conservative judges love talking to friendly media outlets. They don’t like talking to anyone who might actually try and hold them accountable.

“I’m sure you’re aware of our connections with the Trump Administration and I’m sure they would be interested in this matter. I would strongly suggest dropping this story.”

Declining a press request is one thing

Trying to silence the press entirely is another

ballsandstrikes.org/legal-cultur...

Screenshot of tables showing the phone and audio calling rates, as well as video calling rates in prisons and jails

🚨NEW: The FCC has voted to raise calling rates for incarcerated people – a move that bends to the will of telecomm companies, jails and prisons, while saddling poor families with higher costs.

Now, prices could hike as much as 83% 🧵

Are Business Schools Accidentally Turning Away Working-Class Talent? MBA programs risk 'institutional exclusion' when their brands signal elitism, making first-gen & low-income students feel they don’t belong.

This is a great interview with my coauthor @cbrandtner.bsky.social about our recent @sfjournal.bsky.social paper: poetsandquants.com/2025/10/28/a... (the paper can be found here: doi.org/10.1093/sf/s...)

Join Professor Joe Soss on Friday morning to hear about the legal plunder of the justice system. Soss will discuss the origins, operations, and consequences of revenue shifts from communities to governments and corporations.
Join us by registering here → zurl.co/LbUc5

Contributor: The Trump administration is targeting children of color Instead of policies that reduce crime, we get rhetoric of locking up 'bad children.' It's counterproductive and expensive, and it distracts from real solutions that were working before Trump cut their...

New op-ed in the LA Times by myself & Dave Stovall. We wrote this because are watching in horror the ways this administration is terrorizing Children of Color. Black & Brown children deserve better than this. We all deserve better than this. www.latimes.com/opinion/stor...

Q: “Most hospitals + people who will lose insurance are in rural areas. If Trump & Republicans are so intent on sticking it to their own voters, why not let them?”

@aoc.bsky.social : “That’s the difference between us & Trump. I don’t care if you voted for me, I want you to have health care.”

Movement Law Under Fascism As fascist tendencies intensify across the United States, social movements continue to organize against the forces of state repression. Legal scholars must stand with these movements…

Today I wrote in @lpeblog.bsky.social with Amna Akbar & @sameer-ashar.bsky.social about how legal scholars & teachers might act in solidarity with movements in this moment, in the face of fascism: lpeproject.org/blog/movemen...

Texas State upholds the firing of associate history professor Thomas Alter Alter’s termination occurred on Sept. 10, stemming from his remarks at the Revolutionary Socialism Conference on Sept. 7.

I just learned, Thomas Alter, tenured professor, has been terminated effective immediately. Shame on Texas State! We mst build support for Tom. spectrumlocalnews.com/tx/south-tex...

Black Unemployment Is Surging Again. This Time Is Different.

Attacks on the federal workforce are also attacks on Black workers, who are overrepresented in the public sector.

Black unemployment is 7.5%. I'm reminded of Coates' observation that Black Americans regularly experience conditions that would be considered a crisis if whites faced them.

worth revisiting this piece on the value of prosecuting killer cops (or lack thereof)

www.essence.com/feature/breo...

A screenshot of the website contexts.org shows a photo of a person in a graduation gown holding up a hand-written sign that reads "Now What?" The caption is "Young, mostly liberal law students in this study navigated the ethical conflicts of their career paths through a series of moral justifications." The article below is titled "Good Lawyer, Bad Lawyer," and it is written by Elena G. Van Stee.

🚨Fresh #sociology alert! In "Good Lawyer, Bad Lawyer," @elenavanstee.bsky.social summarizes
@mathuclair.bsky.social and Sophia Hunt's research into the decision-making processes of young progressives entering professions they see as perpetuating #inequality
contexts.org/articles/goo...

Working on a dissertation in American political behavior and need money for survey research? Apply for a grant worth up to $15,000 from the Rapoport Family Foundation. They’re planning on awarding up to 15 grants this cycle.

Deadline Oct. 22.

www.rapoportfamilyfoundation.com/phdgrant

photo of me

congrats to my friend Maisha Winn of @stanfordeducation.bsky.social and fellow from @casbsstanford.bsky.social on her latest book, Futuring Black Lives: Independent Black Institutions and the Literary Imagination

A MUST READ!!

Justin J. Pearson of the 'Tennessee Three' Has Had It With 'Mediocrity' -- So He's Running for Congress

Justin J. Pearson — the 30-year-old Memphis representative and member of the “Tennessee Three” who protested gun violence — has announced a bid to primary 76-year-old Democrat Steve Cohen for a seat in the U.S. House.

The Supreme Court v. Democracy The Nation’s justice correspondent previews the court’s coming term—and explains why it will never stand up to Trump.

www.thenation.com/article/soci...

Toward the Next American University: A Roundtable Discussion on the Future of Higher Ed - Public Books The path higher education was on before Trump’s reelection was neither certain nor stable. There is not much to go back to now.

A thoughtful series of essays on the present crisis, and possible future, of higher education in @publicbooks.bsky.social

www.publicbooks.org/toward-the-n...

Punishment in All but Name - Mary Ellen Stitt - Inquest Drug diversion programs are hyped by reformists as alternatives to prison—but they function just like punishment and people often end up incarcerated anyway.

"Treatment providers are asked to exercise . . . coercive control over their court-mandated clients, warping the therapeutic relationship." Mary Ellen Stitt w/
@uchicagopress.bsky.social on how treatment ends up feeling a lot like punishment when courts get involved: