Unclaimed
Ruha Benjamin
Technology & AI
Ruha Benjamin is a sociologist and Princeton professor whose work examines innovation and equity at the intersection of race, justice, and technology.
Biography
Ruha Benjamin is an American sociologist and professor in Princeton University’s Department of African American Studies. Born in 1978, she studies the relationship between innovation and equity, particularly where race, justice, and technology intersect. Her work examines how technologies can reproduce social divisions and discrimination while appearing neutral or beneficial.
Benjamin’s books include People's Science: Bodies and Rights on the Stem Cell Frontier (2013), Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code (2019), Viral Justice: How We Grow the World We Want (2022), and Imagination: A Manifesto (2024). In Race After Technology, she introduces the “New Jim Code” to explain how discriminatory design can encode inequity. She was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2024.
Wikipedia contributors · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Excerpt, formatting adapted
Books by Ruha Benjamin
Race After Technology
Race After Technology examines how emerging technologies can reinforce white supremacy and deepen social inequity while appearing neutral or benevolent. Through the concept of the “New Jim Code,” it explores how discriminatory designs amplify racial hierarchies, reproduce social divisions, or undermine efforts to address racial bias.