Richard Sander

Richard Sander is an economist and law professor at UCLA, where he has taught since 1989 and where he serves as Director of the UCLA-RAND Center for Law and Public Policy. Most of his work draws on both law and social science to understand problems of social inequality and evaluate social policies. He is the author of two books: Moving Toward Integration (Harvard, 2018), which attempts to explain the complex evolution of housing segregation in America, the effects of fair housing laws, and the paths to desegregation; and Mismatch (Basic Books, 2012), which examines the paradoxical and often counterproductive effects of many current affirmative action policies in higher education, suggests a better path to diversity, and describes the barriers to reform. Sander also collaborates with judges and scholars to study innovative ways to simplify litigation and to evaluate the results of reforms – an approach that has gained a good deal of traction in recent years.