Overview
The Black Policy Project is a multifaceted policy oriented research initiative housed within the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies. With its primary focus on producing quality, community driven research that helps spur policy change, BPP serves as the bridge between Black scholarship at UCLA and sociopolitical decision making. The Black Policy Project, ran by the Bunche Center’s Policy Director, comprises a small team of Black scholars, a campus-wide network of Bunche Center affiliated faculty, and several community partnerships.
Contracted & State-Sponsored Projects
Major Reports
- 2023 State of Black California (SOBC) Report (forthcoming)
- 2008 State of Black California (SOBC) Report
Research Briefs & Discussion Pieces
- Reparation Series (forthcoming)
- State of Black California (SOBC) Series (forthcoming)
BPP Team
Michael A. Stoll is Professor of Public Policy in the Luskin School of Public Affairs at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He serves as a Fellow at the American Institutes for Research, the Brookings Institution, the Institute for Research on Poverty at University of Wisconsin, Madison, and the National Poverty Center at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and served as a past Visiting Scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation.
Dr. Stoll’s published work explores questions of poverty, labor markets, migration, and crime. His past work includes an examination of the labor market difficulties of less-skilled workers, in particular the role that racial residential segregation, job location patterns, job skill demands, employer discrimination, job competition, transportation, job information and criminal records play in limiting employment opportunities.
His recent work examines the labor market consequences of mass incarceration and the benefits and costs of the prison boom. A recently completed book, Why Are so Many Americans in Prison, explores the causes of the American prison boom and what to do about it to insure both low crime and incarceration rates.
Much of his work has been featured in a variety of media outlets including NPR, PBS, the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Economist, Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle, and Washington Post, ABC, NBC, CBS, Univision, among other outlets. He also regularly advises the U.S. Departments of Health and Human Services and Labor, as well as for state and local governments in various capacities.
Prof. Stoll received his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and a B.S. from the University of California, Berkeley.
Jendalyn Coulter is a research scholar, empowerment practitioner, and political change-agent. Earning both her Masters in Public Policy & Masters in Social Welfare from the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, her areas of focus are social, economic & restorative justice. Throughout her rising career, she has concentrated on investigating disparities hindering disenfranchised communities and examining the role of established infrastructures in mitigating or even perpetuating such harms.
Applying a community-centered focus, her prior scholarly research and service has concentrated on vulnerable populations, including foster youth, incarcerated folkx, social service beneficiaries, economically disadvantaged first-generation college students, and domestic violence survivors. Her other endeavors more directly address varying forms of marginalization impacting the Black community, as a whole. This prompted her involvement within a variety of professional realms — schools-based settings, research firms, non-profits, pediatric healthcare, governmental organizations — to better understand, serve and support these service populations. Both her direct service and scholarly pursuits influence her strides within the policy arena, to which her work has prompted greater advocacy surrounding barriers and issues hindering such communities while contributing to reform initiatives within varying realms in public service systems.
Her most recent endeavors as the Program Coordinator for the Black Policy Project, has consisted of analyzing dialogue from nearly 900 Black Californians pertaining to radicalized harms experienced, drafting community-informed reparations proposals to be addressed by California state officials, and organizing legislative & stakeholder convenings to address the findings. Her focus on centering groups’ narratives and collective experiences, while applying an ecological approach, has enabled the production of evidence-based findings that aids in the development of service, programmatic, and policy -based interventions across varying tiers/levels of impact. Overall, her career aspirations are to advance the life prospects of disenfranchised communities, through converting community-informed research into actionable change – via social policy reform.
