Administrative law has a racial blind spot, argues Daniel E. Ho of Stanford Law School. Judges have long set aside agency actions when government officials have failed to consider the differential impacts of their policy decisions on subgroups of business owners, park visitors, and even animals — but not when they have failed to consider differential impacts based on race or ethnicity. In this episode, Professor Ho traces how civil rights and administrative law have diverged over the past fifty years, as U.S. court decisions have removed issues of racial discrimination from administrative law’s purview. He concludes by discussing reforms that could better address racial inequities in the administrative state.

Race and Regulation focuses on the most fundamental responsibility of any society: ensuring equal justice, and dignity and respect, to all people.  The host is Cary Coglianese, the Director of the Penn Program on Regulation and a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School.

Send comments or questions to podcast@pennreg.org. 

The racial wealth gap in the United States is driven in part by a lack of access to credit among communities of color. But as Brian D. Feinstein of the Wharton School relays in this episode, new empirical research indicates that increasing the level of diversity on regional Federal Reserve Bank boards improves credit access for underbanked minority communities. He draws out the major implications of this research not only for narrowing the racial wealth gap, but for understanding the role that diversity in institutional leadership, including on corporate boards, can play in advancing racial equity more broadly.

Race and Regulation focuses on the most fundamental responsibility of any society: ensuring equal justice, and dignity and respect, to all people. The host is Cary Coglianese, the Director of the Penn Program on Regulation and a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School.

Racial disparities have occurred in COVID-19's health effects and fatalities. They have persisted through the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines too, which saw a greater uptake in socioeconomically privileged segments of the population. These outcomes did not have to occur.  Olatunde Johnson of Columbia Law School discusses how regulators could have made different policy design choices to promote greater equity in the vaccine rollout — and she draws key lessons not only for the next public health emergency but also for improving racial equity more generally.

Race and Regulation focuses on the most fundamental responsibility of any society: ensuring equal justice, and dignity and respect, to all people.  The host is Cary Coglianese, the Director of the Penn Program on Regulation and a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School.

Send comments or questions to podcast@pennreg.org.