john a. powell

John A. Powell is a scholar specializing in civil rights, structural racism, housing policy, poverty, and democracy. Powell serves as director of the Othering & Belonging Institute at the University of California, Berkeley, a research institute focused on identifying and eliminating barriers to an inclusive and equitable society. He holds the Robert D. Haas Chancellor's Chair in Equity and Inclusion and is a professor of Law, African American Studies, and Ethnic Studies at UC Berkeley.

Powell's career integrates legal advocacy and academic scholarship. He served as national legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union, where he contributed to the development of educational adequacy theory. Powell was previously executive director of the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at Ohio State University and founder and director of the Institute for Race and Poverty at the University of Minnesota. He has worked internationally, consulting for the governments of Mozambique and South Africa, and has also worked in India and Brazil. Powell has taught at several law schools, including Harvard and Columbia University.

Powell is known for developing frameworks that influence how policymakers and advocates address equity. He led the development of an opportunity-based model connecting affordable housing to education, health, health care, and employment. Powell is recognized for his work on targeted universalism and othering and belonging as strategies for equity-based interventions. He has written extensively on structural racism, racial justice, regionalism, concentrated poverty, urban sprawl, opportunity-based housing, voting rights, affirmative action in the United States, South Africa and Brazil, racial and ethnic identity, spirituality and social justice, and the needs of citizens in a democratic society. His book "Racing to Justice: Transforming Our Conceptions of Self and Other to Build an Inclusive Society" presents these concepts to a broad audience.

Powell's work continues to examine inclusion and social division. "Belonging without Othering," co-authored with Stephen Menendian, explores the roots of social division and advocates for a paradigm of belonging that does not require the creation of an "other." Powell has appeared on NPR and WNYC's "On the Media" to discuss free speech and the Constitution, "Last Week Tonight with John Oliver" regarding housing segregation, and CBS Evening News to address targeted universalism. He is a co-founder of the Poverty & Race Research Action Council and serves on the boards of several national and international organizations. Through research, legal advocacy, and public engagement, Powell is a prominent voice on equity, belonging, and democracy.