Bellagio Residency: May 2022
Project: “Bridging the Diploma Divide in American Politics”
Joan Williams is a law professor who studies race, class and gender. During Williams’ residency at Bellagio in May 2022, she worked on a website designed to help turn back the tide that is leading to economic populism both in Europe and in the U.S., by helping build bridges between college-educated progressives and non-elites of all races in their own countries. Williams’ Harvard Business Review article, “What So Many People Don’t Get About the U.S. Working Class” has been read over 3 million times and is now the most read article in HBR’s 90-plus year history. She is a Professor of Law at the University of California, San Francisco and Founding Director of the Center for Work Life Law.