jared.clemons@temple.edu

I am an Assistant Professor in Political Science at Temple University. My research focuses on political economy, political behavior, black political theory, antiracism, and the US education system. I am currently working on a book tentatively titled Privatizing Antiracism: Why Education Cannot Solve Racial Inequality, in which I examine the role that education has played in the fight for racial equality in the US, particularly since the modern civil rights movement. Tracing our current public school system to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, I argue that, due to the nature of the capitalist economy, the idea of equal educational opportunity—often believed to be the answer to racial inequality—cannot be realized. Employing a mixed methods approach to my research, I rely upon archival and both observational and experimental survey data to provide empirical evidence for what I call the education paradox, which underscores two irreconcilable functions of the education system: it is at once both an engine of social and economic inequality as well as a means by which people seek to rectify structural injustices, especially those stemming from legacies of racism. Since the passage of the ESEA, however, the first function—education as an engine of inequality—has prevailed. Given this, I advance a new conceptual framework, the privatization of racial responsibility, which offers a new accounting of structural racial inequality and how it might be addressed politically outside the education system. My book builds upon my dissertation, The Privatization of Racial Responsibility: A Materialist Analysis of White Antiracism Under Neoliberal Capitalism, which won the 2024 Best Dissertation Award from the American Political Economy (APE) section of the American Political Science Association.

Identity, Social Protection and Inclusion, Inequality, Civil Society