Fragmented Democracy: Medicaid, Federalism, and Unequal Politics
Spring 2021
Jamila Michener is an associate professor of Government at Cornell University. She studies poverty, racism, and public policy, with a particular focus on health and housing. She is author of Fragmented Democracy: Medicaid, Federalism, and Unequal Politics (Cambridge University Press, 2018). She is co-director of the Cornell Center for Health Equity, co-director of the Politics of Race, Immigration, Class and Ethnicity (PRICE)research initiative, and board chair of the Cornell Prison Education Program.
Michener is a publicly engaged scholar who works extensively with state, local, and national organizations, advising on issues related to poverty and public policy. Her public writing has been featured in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Vox, Salon and other outlets. Locally, she is a member of the community advisory board of the Rural Health Equity Training Collaborative (RHETC) and a board member of Ithaca Family and Children Services.
Prior to working at Cornell, she was a Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Scholar at the University of Michigan. She received her MA and PhD from the University of Chicago and her undergraduate degree from Princeton University.
Education as a Fundamental Right: Spring 2019
Justin Driver, Harry N. Wyatt Professor of Law at the University of Chicago Law School
Justin Driver clerked for Supreme Court Justices Stephen Breyer and Sandra Day O’Connor. A recipient of the American Society for Legal History’s William Nelson Cromwell Article Prize, Driver has a distinguished publication record in the nation’s leading law reviews. He has also written extensively for lay audiences, including pieces in Slate, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, and The New Republic, where he was a contributing editor. A member of the American Law Institute and of the American Constitution Society’s Academic Advisory Board, Driver is also an editor of the Supreme Court Review. Before attending law school, Driver received a master’s degree in education from Duke and taught civics and American history to high school students. His first book, The Schoolhouse Gate: Public Education, the Supreme Court, and the Battle for the American Mind, was published by Pantheon in September 2018. (biography information from: https://www.law.uchicago.edu/faculty/driver).