In Search of Social Equity in Public Administration: Race, Gender, and Some “Class”‐ey New Ideas

Public Administration for a New Season: Reflecting on Neglected Rural Concerns

“…Among them, Carter mentioned one person who said “Some of us have suffered from recession all our lives.” In thinking about this issue, and reading some of these historical documents again (as well as some for the first time), I thought about my own upbringing. That statement would certainly have applied to me as well, as I intimated in the previous issue (Hall 2022)—recession or not, things were always about the same. The dirt was still dusty, and tobacco was still selling cheap.…”

“…The availability of scarce resources, such as rare earth minerals, will add a firmer structure to the future of specialized manufacturing, which has added implications for national security. Supercomputers—quantum computers—that are now being developed for large agencies could be set up anywhere, but they tend to be collocated with federal laboratories and in places with ready access to major sources of energy they require to operate (Exmeyer and Hall 2022). In the heat of the pandemic, there were shortages of key pharmaceuticals, in part because manufacturing was shuttered, and in part because of shipping and transportation concerns.…”

Reckoning With Race and Gender in Public Administration and Public Policy: A Substantive Social Equity Turn

“…This is a particularly important point. To build on one of the key points in this issue's editorial (Hall 2022a), it is important to recognize the class differential and the advantages Whites belonging to the so‐called bicoastal elite class have over those from rural Appalachia or other similarly marginalized locations. This, of course, should not overshadow the fact that people of the same race—Whites included—simultaneously suffer and succeed from the same location as a result of such class differences.…”

“…This, of course, should not overshadow the fact that people of the same race—Whites included—simultaneously suffer and succeed from the same location as a result of such class differences. Hall (2022a) also provides a thoughtful account of the evolution of the noted American sociologist William Julius Wilson's thinking on the primacy of class versus race in marginalization and the urgent need to recognize the powerful influence of social class.…”

Raising Expectations: The War We Must Fight to Prevent One

“…Rural versus urban concerns occupy the background, though they no longer correspond directly to state or regional boundaries (Hall 2022b). In the forefront, we still see major tension around social equity surrounding race, gender, and income (Hall 2022a, 2022b). More deeply, Americans still espouse liberty and freedom as core values, but operationalizing those concepts around issues like gun control, abortion, police power, climate change, economic policy, and a host of other issues has become problematic.…”