Professor Domingo Morel recognized by NYU Wagner with Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) research award

NYU Wagner has awarded its fourth annual Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) research prize to Domingo Morel, the school’s Associate Professor of Political Science and Public Service, for his work of scholarship, Developing Scholars: Race, Politics, and the Pursuit of Higher Education. Published by Oxford University Press, the 2023 book explores talent development programs that emerged in response to protest and urban unrest in the 1960s and continue to this day despite many obstacles, including reductions in state funding for public institutions of higher education. Aimed at low-income students, the programs were forged under a community-centered approach that is different from the better-known policy of affirmative action at elite campuses. Using a deep dive into national data as well as his own personal experiences, Professor Morel deftly and profoundly shows how activism was instrumental in creating and maintaining the programs, and how academic requirements for professional certification and licensure have arisen in response. The latter pose a “hidden form of restriction” to students of color seeking careers in nursing, education, engineering, and many other professions, his data analysis reveals.

Domingo Morel holds a joint appointment in NYU's Wilf Family Department of Politics. He teaches about and studies racial and ethnic politics, urban politics, education politics and public policy. He is also the author of Takeover: Race, Education, and American Democracy (2018, Oxford University Press), which won the W.E.B. Du Bois Distinguished Book Award. He co-edited the collection titled Latino Mayors: Power and Political Change in the Postindustrial City (2018, Temple University Press).