News

Badgett to Lead CPPA

Dean Janet Rifkin has appointed Associate Professor M.V. Lee Badgett (economics and public policy) as director of the Center for Public Policy and Administration. Badgett is also the research director of the Williams Institute for Sexual Orientation Law and Public Policy at UCLA.

Badgett's research focuses on family policy issues and on labor market discrimination based on sexual orientation, race, and gender. She is coeditor of Sexual Orientation Discrimination: An International Perspective (Routledge, 2007). Her first book, Money, Myths, and Change: The Economic Lives of Lesbians and Gay Men (University of Chicago Press, 2001), presented her groundbreaking work debunking the myth of gay affluence. She is finishing a third book on whether marriages of same-sex couples will change the institution of marriage, drawing on the U.S. and European experiences with marriage equality for gay couples. Badgett’s policy-related work includes testifying as an expert witness in legislative matters and litigation, analyzing public policies, consulting with regulatory bodies, briefing policymakers, writing op-ed pieces, speaking with journalists, and advising businesses.

Badgett states, "Teaching in CPPA has been one of the highlights of my UMass Amherst job, and I’m thrilled to have the chance to contribute to the Center in a new way. We have an engaged, productive, and smart community of faculty, staff, and students with unlimited potential. This year we’ll have a chance to strategize about the best ways to use our collective energies to move CPPA into its next ten years of growth."

August 20, 2007