Hakeem Jefferson

B.A., Political Science and African American Studies, University of South Carolina, 2011 PhD, Political Science, University of Michigan, 2018 Assistant Professor, Political Science

I am an assistant professor of political science at Stanford University where I am also a faculty affiliate with the Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity and the Stanford Center for American Democracy. I received my PhD in political science from the University of Michigan and a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science and African American Studies from the University of South Carolina.

My research focuses primarily on the role identity plays in structuring political attitudes and behaviors in the U.S. I am especially interested in understanding how stigma shapes the politics of Black Americans, particularly as it relates to group members’ support for racialized punitive social policies. In other research projects, I examine the psychological and social roots of the racial divide in Americans’ reactions to officer-involved shootings and work to evaluate the meaningfulness of key political concepts, like ideological identification, among Black Americans.

My dissertation, "Policing Norms: Punishment and the Politics of Respectability Among Black Americans," was a co-winner of the 2020 Best Dissertation Award from the Political Psychology Section of the American Political Science Association.

Professor Jefferson joined Stanford as part of the Faculty Development Initiative in 2018.

PUBLICATIONS

• Jefferson, Hakeem, Fabian Neuner, and Josh Pasek. 2020. “Seeing Blue in Black and White: Race and
• Perceptions of Officer-Involved Shootings.” Perspectives on Politics
• Hutchings, Vincent and Hakeem Jefferson. 2017. “The Sociological Approach and the Social-Psychological
• Approach.” In The Routledge Handbook of Elections, Voting Behavior and Public Opinion, Justin Fisher, Edward
• Fieldhouse, Mark N. Franklin, Rachel Gibson, Marta Cantijoch and Wlezien (Editors). Routledge.
• Craemer, Thomas, Todd Shaw, Courtney Edwards, Hakeem Jefferson. 2011. “'Race Still Matters, However...'
• Implicit Identification with Blacks, Pro-Black Policy Support and the Obama Candidacy.” Ethnic and Racial
• Studies 36 (6): 1047-1069.