RESEARCH OVERVIEW
My research agenda examines Diversity, Dominance, and Discrimination (3D). In it I bridge law, social psychology, and organizational behavior to examine how racial hierarchy is reproduced through legal, institutional, and psychological mechanisms—often under the guise of equality. I often focus on the private ordering of inequality: how laws, doctrines, and ideologies, even those claiming to promote inclusion, participate in maintaining dominance. Across my projects, I develop and apply a sociocultural model of discrimination that foregrounds dominance—not bias or animus—as the primary force sustaining racial inequality in legal and organizational practice. This model is foundational for my normative call for a shift from DEI in legal and organizational life to Power, Belonging, and Justice (PBJ) framework, a more robust, power-conscious approach to racial justice.
Diversity, Dominance, & Law in the Tech Eco-System
This stream investigates how legal tools, doctrines, and institutional practices—especially in private law—are used to preserve racial hierarchy under the veneer of inclusion. I examine how private agreements (such as venture capital contracts and corporate nondisclosure agreements) and regulatory regimes (like SEC disclosure rules or compliance frameworks) structure control, suppress accountability, and enable symbolic diversity without redistributing power. This work centers on venture capital, corporate governance, and tech policy to reveal how legal structures often reproduce dominance—even as firms and founders appear to be participating equitably in the market.
(Implicit) Social Dominance & Diversity-related Decision-making
This line of research develops and applies the first ever implicit measure of social dominance orientation (ISDO) to uncover hierarchy-maintaining motivations within seemingly egalitarian policies, people, and organizations. It uses this to explain the diversity principle-policy gap and builds on her novel framework of Power, Belonging, & Justice (PBJ) vs. DEI as a means of social change.
Perceptions of Intersectionality, Identity, & Identity-Safety
Exploring and expanding perceptions of identity and the interconnected hierarchies of experience that result. This line of research also examines the strategic use and/or exploitation of identity to maintain group-based dominance and hierarchies.