Upcoming Event
Form Huber Colloquium Series with speaker Dr. Adia Wingfield
February 16th from 12:30pm-1:45pm in Townshend Hall Room 248
“Gray Areas: How the Way We Work Maintains Racism and How We Can Fix It”
Abstract: 60+ years since the Civil Rights Act, and decades into the mainstreaming of DEI programming, racial disparities in the workplace still persist. Black workers experience extensive wage inequality, remain less likely to be hired, stall out at midlevel positions, and rarely advance to the top ranks of organizations. To explain this seeming paradox, Gray Areas introduces the concept of “gray areas” to highlight the sociological dynamics of work that continue to impede Black employees’ progress. Following narratives of seven Black workers in fields ranging from academia to medicine to entertainment, this book shows unexpected ways that basic aspects of work are themselves major contributors to racial inequality.
Bio: Adia Harvey Wingfield is the Mary Tileston Hemenway Professor of Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, where she is also Vice Dean for Faculty Development and Diversity and co-director of the Program for Public Scholarship. Her research examines how and why racial and gender inequality persist in professional occupations and has been published in numerous peer-reviewed journals including Annual Review of Sociology, Gender & Society, and American Sociological Review. In addition to her academic scholarship, Professor Wingfield contributes regularly to mainstream outlets including Slate, The Atlantic, Vox, and Harvard Business Review. She is the recipient of multiple awards including the 2013 Richard A. Lester Award from Princeton University for her book No More Invisible Man: Race and Gender in Men’s Work; the 2018 Public Understanding of Sociology Award from the American Sociological Association; and the 2019 C. Wright Mills Award from the Society for the Study of Social Problems (SSSP) for her book, Flatlining: Race, Work, and Health Care in the New Economy. In 2023, she was elected the 116th President of the American Sociological Association (ASA).
