Welcome to “Favorite Course Friday”! Throughout the semester we will be highlighting electives available next semester with the Department of Public Policy (DPP). Interested in joining the DPP in the classroom next semester? Email dpp@uconn.edu for more information!
This course focuses on an examination of contemporary public policy through the lens of race. Students will begin by looking at the policy process, the racial and ethnic composition of the United States, the impact of immigration, and the malleability of race and ethnicity. Throughout the course, students will analyze past public policies that systematically disadvantaged African Americans compared to their White American counterparts through de jure discrimination and will discuss why policies designed to remedy the resulting disparities have seemed unsuccessful at closing the Black/White wealth gap. Finally, students will trace this gap to the public policy of slavery in the United States and brainstorm about ways how this gap can be reduced or eliminated through race-related public policy proposals regarding reparations for African American descendants of the enslaved.