Race and Regulation Penn Program on Regulation

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. 

Formal citizenship requirements for political participation excludes not only noncitizens, but also many individuals from racial communities perpetually seen as foreigners. Ming Hsu Chen of the University of California Hastings College of Law looks at regulatory barriers, such as voter ID laws, that inhibit both racial minorities and non-citizens from participating equally in the American political process. She offers proposals for regulatory changes that would create a more equitable political order. 
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 and/or questions to podcast@pennreg.org. 

As mandated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, clinical trials for new pharmaceuticals enroll healthy people as paid research participants to test for drug safety and tolerability. But the social injustices from these trials are too often overlooked. Drawing on her award-winning book, Adverse Events, Jill Fisher of UNC-Chapel Hill’s Center for Bioethics explains how clinical drug trials attract disproportionate participation by racial and ethnic minorities who then disproportionately assume risks of participating in these trials, often just to stay financially afloat.

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 and/or questions to podcast@pennreg.org.

In this episode, Anita Allen, an internationally renowned expert on the philosophical dimensions of privacy and data protection law, reveals how race-neutral privacy laws in the U.S. have failed to address the unequal burdens faced online by Black Americans, whose personal data are used in racially discriminatory ways. Professor Allen articulates what she terms an African American Online Equity Agenda to guide the development of race-conscious privacy regulations that can better promote racial justice in the modern digital economy.

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 and/or questions to podcast@pennreg.org.