Hakeem Jefferson

Pre-print now available! If race is socially constructed, we should study how. We do so by asking who counts as Black. Parentage, skin tone, party id, neighborhood, & spouse's race all shape perceived blackness. Who is doing the classifying matters too. A labor of love. osf.io/preprints/so...

The executive targets his opponents w/bogus investigations. His government disappears people w/out due process and vanishes them beyond reach. He usurps legislative power, controls public funds at will, & consolidates power. Loyalty is expected — or else. Authoritarianism isn’t coming. It’s here.

A colleague at Stanford’s business school used The Stanford Daily to argue—poorly—against DEI. The piece was riddled with historical errors and left one searching for fact, so I broke my public writing hiatus to respond. I hope you’ll read and share the piece. stanforddaily.com/2025/04/22/w...

If the government can “deport” you for having beliefs they don’t like, none of us is free. Call it what you want, but it sure as shit ain’t democracy.

I wonder how Google AI confused @trevondlogan.bsky.social with me in this author list for a paper I co-authored. Is Google AI doing the “they all look the same” thing??

Re Cornell: As a fellow at Stanford’s Clayman Institute for Gender & Sexuality last year, I began thinking abt how we might study homosociality, or the relational bonds btwn men, empirically—bonds we know matter for lots of men. Writeup of my v early-stage work: gender.stanford.edu/news/can-we-...

I really was hoping this was all some joke, but you can’t make this stuff up. stanforddaily.com/2026/09/23/u...

Nikole Hannah-Jones w/ a sobering follow-up on her decision yrs ago to enroll her daughter in a poor, majority-Black public school rather than a wealthier, whiter private school. You leave heartbroken for the kids being failed by this grossly unequal system. www.nytimes.com/2026/09/20/m...

Do yourself an end of summer favor and make this dish, recommended today by Melissa Clark at @nytimes.com. Recipe by Hetty Lui McKinnon. @villarrecords.bsky.social and I have made this previously and loved it. So good, and super easy. cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1024...

So grateful to @atrexler.com and the good folks at @uwmadison.bsky.social political science for a fantastic visit. I also now understand the Madison hype. A fantastic college town I’m looking forward to visiting again.

Standing outside of hotel, waiting to go to dinner w/ colleagues. I can see it all happen in slow motion, as white guy and his wife park their car. I look down at my phone, waiting for Uber details. He approaches. I know, with certainty, what is about to happen. 100%. “Are you the valet?”

Last leg of travel! Fun APSA w/ some of my fav folks in Boston. A week of rest and very good food with my family in South Carolina. Now off to Wisconsin for the first time to engage their American politics workshop. And then back home to @villarrecords.bsky.social who’s been away for 2 months!

There are many things I miss about the south, but my goodness, the food, the food, the food. My fav southern meal: fried fish. Tonight, had it alongside fried okra, hush puppies, and crispy fries. Thankful I don’t have access to this with any regularity. Grateful I had it tonight w/ the parents.

At my parents’ place in SC and the number of spam calls they get is insane. Of ~20 calls a day, maybe 2 or 3 are legitimate. I just put them on the Do Not Call Registry, but this seems like exactly the kind of thing a bipartisan group of legislators could crack down on with broad public support.