About Hakeem Jefferson
I am an assistant professor of political science at Stanford University where I am also a faculty affiliate with the Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity, the Stanford Center for American Democracy, and the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law. During the 2021-2022 academic year, I was the SAGE Sara Miller McCune Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences.
I received my PhD in political science from the University of Michigan and a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science and African American Studies from the University of South Carolina. I am a proud product of underresourced public schools in Sumter, South Carolina, and grew up in Gable, South Carolina—an experience that taught me more about power and privilege than any college course ever could.
As a social scientist, I am concerned chiefly with questions related to identity and the multi-faceted ways that identity structures all aspects of our social and political lives. I am particularly interested in the politics of stigmatized groups, and a key aspect of my research agenda focuses on highlighting and explaining diversity in Black public opinion.
My on-going research on the politics of respectability provides a careful theoretical framework and novel measure of respectability that help make sense of Black Americans’ support for tough-on-crime laws and punitive social welfare policies. This work serves as the basis for my in-progress book project, tentatively titled “Respectability: Identity, Stigma, and the Politics of Punishment among Black Americans.”
In other work, I demonstrate that the most frequently used measure of ideological identification—the 7-point liberal-conservative scale—cannot be used in service of understanding the politics of Black Americans who evince much less familiarity with the terms “liberal” and “conservative” than their White counterparts.
In work with Fabian Neuner (Arizona State University) and Josh Pasek (University of Michigan), I examine what sustains the persistent racial divide in Americans’ reactions to officer-involved shootings and similar contentious events. In 2022, we received a grant from the Russell Sage Foundation to continue this work.
Currently, I am at work on several other projects that I am very excited about. In work with Lauren Davenport (Stanford University) and Hunter Rendleman (Harvard University), we set out to empirically examine how Americans construct the category “Black”. With Koji Takahashi (Northwestern University) and Allison Earl (University of Michigan), we document White Americans’ preference for avoiding information about race and racism, and demonstrate that this avoidance is, in part, related to identity-based motives. With Taiwo Mustafa, a graduate student at Stanford, I am working to provide one of the first empirical accounts of how individuals’ perceptions of collective costs affect their reactions to undesirable ingroup behavior and motivate ingroup policing.
For information about other on-going projects, please check out my CV linked below, and please reach out if you would like to talk about any of this work.
Though I approach my research with the rigor of a well-trained scholar, I am also a Black man in America, keenly aware of the history of racism and racial violence that are core features of the American project. Both as a teacher and as a citizen deeply unsettled by injustice, I see my job as helping to clarify and contextualize these problems that bear on matters of life and death and threaten to further undermine the health of our democracy, particularly for those who live at the margins of our society.
Following George Floyd’s murder at the knee of a Minneapolis police officer, I convened a group of leading scholars of race, policing, punishment, and the criminal justice system to consider the problem of race and policing in America and to consider where we go from here.
If you are interested in learning more about race and racism in the United States, I also encourage you to check out another event I convened with Steven Moore, while a graduate student at the University of Michigan, “The Other America: Still Separate. Still Unequal.” You can find a playlist of speakers from that event here.
Conversations
#RaceAndJusticeConvo
A video of a conversation with leading scholars of race, policing, punishment, & the American criminal justice system
The Other America
Hakeem Jefferson and Steven Moore welcome attendees to "The Other America: Still Separate. Still Unequal."
Contact Hakeem
Academic Collaboration
Because I place a premium on the formal and informal academic exchange of ideas, I am happy to share my research with others and feedback on the work of students and faculty colleagues. If you are inviting me to present as part of a workshop or panel, please use the form below and include information about the event, including details regarding the date and time of the meeting and what you would like me to talk about.
Media Requests
I am an expert on race and politics and identity politics, more broadly. I am especially interested in providing journalists with background expertise and on-the-record commentary about the politics of Black Americans. I can also speak on a wider range of topics, including racialized reactions to officer-involved shootings or the problem of race in the United States, more generally. Please use the form below to share details about your publication, the topic you want me to discuss, and the date by which you would like to conduct the interview.
If you are looking for scholars to comment on other topics, I recommend checking out People of Color Also Know Stuff, as well as Women Also Know Stuff.
Speaking Engagements
I am available to serve as a speaker at events focused on race and politics in the United States or on issues related to justice and equity. If you are interested in having me speak at your event, please use the form below to provide details about the topic you would like me to discuss, information about the audience for the talk, proposed dates, and other information about the event.
General Inquiries
For all other inquiries, please use the form below to provide as much detail as you can about the purpose for your communication. I will respond as soon as time permits.