Ruha Benjamin
Professor of African American Studies at Princeton; author of Race After Technology
Ruha Benjamin studies how technology encodes existing racial hierarchies. Her 2019 book Race After Technology named the "New Jim Code" — the way apparently neutral automated systems reproduce discrimination while appearing objective. She founded the Ida B. Wells Just Data Lab at Princeton.
Key arguments & positions
- Argues discriminatory outcomes are a design outcome, not a glitch: she calls the pattern the "New Jim Code" — systems that look neutral while reproducing existing hierarchy.
- Holds that technical fixes to bias are insufficient without changing who sets the goals and who is in the room.
- Argues imagination is a contested resource: whose future gets built is decided long before the model is trained.
Accomplishments
- Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University.
- Founding director of the Ida B. Wells Just Data Lab.
- Author of Race After Technology (2019), Viral Justice (2022) and Imagination: A Manifesto (2024).
Papers & key writings
Links
In the library
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