I study LGBT inequality to learn how to end it.
“…I would argue that those of us whose work addresses social and economic inequalities have an ethical responsibility to ‘be the change we seek.’ Our relationships with the people we work with—and for—can be deepened by working thoughtfully and with an eye to our work as a means to reducing inequality, not just an end.” from The Public Professor
About Lee
M. V. Lee Badgett is a professor of economics and co-director of the Center for Employment Equity at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and she is the former director of the School of Public Policy. She is also a Williams Distinguished Scholar at UCLA’s Williams Institute, where she was a co-founder and the first research director. She has a Ph.D. in economics from the UC Berkeley and a BA from the University of Chicago.
Her research focuses on economic inequality for LGBT people, including wage gaps, employment discrimination, and poverty, and on the global cost of homophobia and transphobia. Her books on LGBT economic issues have debunked the myth of gay affluence and have shown that same-sex marriage is good for society.
Badgett has testified as an expert witness in legislative matters and litigation (including as an expert witness in California’s Prop 8 case). Her work as a “public professor” includes analyzing public policies, consulting with regulatory bodies, briefing policymakers, and writing op-ed pieces.
Badgett has been a consultant, advisor, or speaker on LGBTI issues at the World Bank, UN Development Programme, USAID, U.S. Department of State, OECD, ILGA, businesses, Inter-American Development Bank, Asian Development Bank, and other agencies and organizations. She has participated in many international forums related to human rights and economic development for LGBTI people, and she is a fellow of the Salzburg Global Seminar LGBT Forum. She a member of the Consensus Panel on the Well-Being of Sexual and Gender Diverse Populations at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, and serves on two standing committees of the American Economics Association and on the board of Wellspring Cooperative Corporation.
Accolades and awards
In 2008, Curve Magazine named her one of the twenty most powerful lesbians in academia, and she has appeared on The Advocate magazine’s "Our Best and Brightest Activists" list and Out Magazine’s “Out 100.” At UMass Amherst, she has received the Award for Outstanding Accomplishments in Research and Creative Activity, the Samuel F. Conti Faculty Fellowship, and the Chancellor’s Medal for exemplary and extraordinary service to the campus.
Salzburg Global Seminar/Ela Grieshaber