Overview
Jamila Michener is a professor of Government and Public Policy at Cornell University. She studies poverty, racism, and public policy, with a particular focus on health and housing. She is author of Fragmented Democracy: Medicaid, Federalism, and Unequal Politics (Cambridge University Press, 2018) and Uncivil Democracy: How Access to Justice Shapes Political Power (Princeton University Press, 2026). She is co-editor of Politics in the American States: A Comparative Analysis (Sage Publications, 2024). She is Inaugural Director of the Center for Racial Justice and Equitable Futures and Senior Associate Dean for Public Engagement at the Brooks School of Public Policy.
Michener’s research has been supported by the National Institutes of Health, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Institute for Research on Poverty, the Russell Sage Foundation, the National Science Foundation, the Commonwealth Fund, and the Ford Foundation. Her public writing has been featured in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Vox, and other many other outlets. She works closely with community-based organizations around the country to apply research insights to address urgent problems facing racially and economically marginalized communities.
Prior to working at Cornell, she was a Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Scholar at the University of Michigan. She received her MA and PhD from the University of Chicago and her undergraduate degree from Princeton University.
Research Focus
Jamila Michener studies American politics and policy, with a particular focus on the political causes and consequences of poverty and racial inequality. Her work explores the conditions under which economically and racially marginalized communities gain power over political processes and the role of the state in shaping the political and economic trajectories of those communities.
Publications
Michener, Jamila and Mallory SoRelle. 2026. Uncivil Democracy: How Access to Justice Shapes Political Power. Princeton University Press.
Kousser, Thad, Jamila Michener, and Caroline Tolbert, editors. 2024. Politics in the American States: A Comparative Analysis. 12th Edition. Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly Press (Sage).
Michener, Jamila. 2018. Fragmented Democracy: Medicaid, Federalism, and Unequal Politics. Cambridge University Press.
Lewis, Jr., Neil, Norman Porticella, Jiawei Liu, Teairah Taylor, Jamila Michener et al. “Beyond Fear of Backlash: Effects of Messages about Structural Drivers of COVID-19 Disparities among Large Samples of Asian, Black, Hispanic, and White Americans.” 2025. Social Science & Medicine.
Benfer, Emily, Peter Hepburn, Valerie Nazarro, Leah Robinson, Jamila Michener, Danya E. Keene. 2025. “Disrupting the U.S. Eviction System: A Descriptive Analysis of Tenant Right to Counsel Law and Praxis 2017-2024.” Housing Policy Debate 35 (3): 470-495.
Jeff Niederdeppe, Norman A. Porticella, Jiawei Liu, Jamila Michener, Erika Franklin Fowler, Rebekah H. Nagler, Teairah Taylor, Colleen L. Barry, & Neil A. Lewis Jr. 2025. “Centering Historically Minoritized Populations to Design Effective Messages about Evidence-Based Policies to Advance Social Equity.” PNAS Nexus 4(1).
Michener, Jamila. 2024. “Building Power for Health: The Grassroots Politics of Sustaining and Strengthening Medicaid.” Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law 50 (2): 189-221.
Ojeda, Christopher, Jamila Michener, and Jake Haselswerdt. 2024. “The Politics of Personal Crisis: How Life Disruptions Shape Political Participation.” Political Behavior 46 (4): 2611-2630.
Michener, Jamila. 2023. “Legal Aid and Social Policy: Managing a Political Economy of Scarcity.” ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences 706 (1): 137-158.
Michener, Jamila. 2023. “Racism, Power, and Health Equity: The Case of Tenant Organizing.” Health Affairs 42 (10): 1318-1324.
Herd, Pamela, Hilary Hoynes, Jamila Michener, and Donald P. Moynihan. 2023. “Introduction: Administrative Burden as a Mechanism of Inequality in Policy Implementation.” RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences 9(5): 1-30.
Michener, Jamila and Tiffany Ford. 2023. “Racism and Health: Three Core Principles.” The Milbank Quarterly 101 (S1): 333-355.
Michener, Jamila. 2023. “Entrenching Inequity, Eroding Democracy: State Preemption of Local Housing Policies.” Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law 48 (2): 157-185.
Barnes, Carolyn, Jamila Michener, and Emily Rains. 2023. “‘It’s Like Night and Day:’ How Bureaucratic Encounters Vary Across WIC, SNAP, and Medicaid.” Social Service Review 97(1):1-40.
Michener, Jamila. 2022. “Health Justice through the Lens of Power.” Journal of Law, Medicine, & Ethics 50 (4): 656-662.
Donohue, Julie M., Evan S. Cole, Cara V. James, Marian Jarlenski, Jamila D. Michener, and Eric T. Roberts. 2022. “The US Medicaid Program: Coverage, Financing, Reforms, and Implications for Health Equity.” JAMA 328 (11): 1085-1099.
Michener, Jamila. 2022. “Civil Justice, Local Organizations, and Democracy.” Columbia Law Review 122 (5): 1389-1422.
Michener, Jamila. 2022. “Race, Power, and Policy: Understanding State Anti-Eviction Policies During COVID-19.” Policy and Society 41 (2): 231-246.
Grumbach, Jacob M. and Jamila Michener. 2022. “American Federalism, Political Inequality, and Democratic Erosion.” ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences 699 (1): 143-155.
Michener, Jamila and Mallory SoRelle. 2022. “Politics, Power, and Precarity: How Tenant Organizations Transform Local Political Life.” Interest Groups & Advocacy 11 (2): 209-236.
Michener, Jamila, Mallory SoRelle, and Chloe Thurston. 2022. “From the Margins to the Center: A Bottom-Up Approach to Welfare State Scholarship.” Perspectives on Politics 20 (1): 154-169.
Michener, Jamila and Alana M.W. LeBrón. 2022. “Racism, Health, and Politics: Advancing Interdisciplinary Knowledge.” Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law 47(2): 111-130.
Michener, Jamila. 2021. “Politics, Pandemic and Racial Justice through the Lens of Medicaid.” American Journal of Public Health 111 (4): 643-648.
Pacheco, Julianna, Jake Haselswerdt and Jamila Michener. 2020. “The Affordable Care Act and Polarization in the United States.” RSF: The Russell Sage Journal of the Social Sciences 6(2): 114-130.
Michener, Jamila. 2020. “Race, Politics, and the Affordable Care Act.” Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law 45(4): 547-566.
Michener, Jamila and Margaret Brower. 2020. “What’s Policy Got to Do with It? Race, Gender and Economic Inequality in the United States” Daedalus 149(1):100-118.
Michener, Jamila. 2020. “Power from the Margins: Grassroots Mobilization and Urban Expansions of Civil Legal Rights.” Urban Affairs Review 56(5): 1390-1422.
Michener, Jamila. 2019. “Medicaid and the Policy Feedback Foundations for Universal Healthcare.” ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 685(1): 116-134.
Michener, Jamila. 2019. “Policy Feedback in a Racialized Polity.” Policy Studies Journal 47(2): 423–450.
Haselswerdt, Jake and Michener, Jamila. 2019. “Disenrolled: Retrenchment and Voting in Health Policy.” Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law 44(3): 423-454.
Michener, Jamila. 2017. “Social Class as Racialized Political Experience.” The Forum 15(1): 93–110.
Michener, Jamila. 2017. “People, Places, Power: Medicaid Policy Concentration and Local Political Participation.” Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law 42(5): 865–900.
Michener, Jamila. 2016. “Race, Poverty and the Redistribution of Voting Rights.” 2016. Journal of Poverty and Public Policy 8(2): 106–128.
Michener, Jamila. 2013. “Neighborhood Disorder and Local Participation: Examining the Political Relevance of ‘Broken Windows.’” Political Behavior 35(4): 777–806.
Responsibilities
Inaugural Director, Center for Racial Justice and Equitable Futures
Senior Associate Dean of Public Engagement, Brooks School of Public Policy
Co-Director, Politics of Race, Immigration, Class, Ethnicity (PRICE) Initiative
In the news
- Historian Keisha N. Blain to speak on Black women and the history of human rights
- Inaugural “Freedom Party” in downtown Ithaca centers on community connection
- Reunion 2025: The view from five years out
- Those most willing to address health disparities tend to be overlooked
- Panels discuss federal research funding threats, opportunities
- Roundtable to consider ‘Science Under Siege’
- Writer Melissa Harris-Perry to speak on community care and democracy
- How to craft effective policy messages to advance equity
- A politicized Supreme Court meets a new moment for America
- Polarized Supreme Court explored in Nov. 20 panel
- Center for Racial Justice and Equitable Futures holds first event
- Personal crises reduce voter turnout, but may prompt other political action
- Poverty is a political choice, Michener tells NYS Senate
- Michener to direct new Center for Racial Justice and Equitable Futures
- New faculty award celebrates community engagement across Cornell
- ‘No one wins when immigrants cannot readily access healthcare’
- Michener advocates ‘Broadening the Tent’ at White House
- Learn & travel with Cornell alumni, faculty this summer
- Michener testifies to House on role of universal health insurance
- A&S Student starts first term on Ithaca's Common Council
- Tenant groups build power in marginalized communities
- Cornell, Ithaca College effort moves housing project forward
- Michener testifies to House committee about health care
- Lewis, Michener honored for diversity contributions
- Juneteenth reverberates with triumph, pain, past and present
- Employers are Begging for Workers. Maybe That's a Good Thing.
- Faculty examine racism ‘embedded’ in US health care
- Health inequities the focus of ‘Racism in America’ webinar on March 29
- Search committee set for policy school’s founding dean
- Latina and Black women lost jobs in record numbers. Policies designed for all women don’t necessarily help.
- Migrations initiative wins $5M Mellon grant for racial justice
- Polls, voters and election 2020: A&S webinar on Oct. 19
- Democracy 20/20 webinar to assess ‘deep state’
- Panel: Pandemic has exposed long-standing health inequities
- A&S initiative launches with webinar about abolishing police
- Webinar to examine systemic racism, health equity
- American Democracy Collaborative launches webinar series
- A&S faculty paving way for policy school, superdepartments
- George Floyd’s killing was just the spark. Here’s what really made the protests explode.
- COVID-19 impact: Jamila Michener on the federal government
- How responding to the new coronavirus is making the safety net for gig workers less flimsy
- Michener views ‘Obamacare’ through lenses of race, politics
- Coronavirus K-12 closures impact safety, stability for vulnerable students
- A&S dean’s book stokes children’s imagination, wonder
- ‘Making the turn’: from inmate to scholar
- Government prof honored with best book award
- Grants create engagement opportunities for students
- Warrior-Scholar Project helps veterans adapt to demands of the classroom
- ‘Serendipity’ leads to summer research for history major
- Warrior-scholars gain skills, confidence from Cornell experience
- Carpenter Advising Awards presented to four faculty members
- A&S dean leaves legacy of support for students, faculty
- Quality of Medicaid varies as a result of public policy
- Professor Jamila Michener wins Early Career Award
- Institute nurtures promising social scientists with ‘dream’ semester
- 36 Cornellians named to Presidential Task Force
- People who get Medicaid are made to feel powerless
- Why We Shouldn’t Drug Test Poor People
- Symposium explores possibilities of origami nanomachines
- ISS supporting faculty research projects, conference
- Why are lower-income Americans apolitical?
- Reunion 2016
- New novel by government professor takes flight
- Campus to discuss 'Between the World and Me' April 28
- Students explore criminal justice through new minor
