Clara Hemphill

Clara Hemphill is an independent journalist and the founding editor of InsideSchools.org, a free online guide to New York City public schools sponsored by The New School's Center for New York City Affairs. As an RSF visiting journalist, Hemphill will write a book that examines why school segregation is so persistent, even in racially integrated neighborhoods. Her research has included spending the 2019-2020 school year following an African American mother who is working to build a multiracial parent-teachers association at her son’s public elementary school in Bedford Stuyvesant, a rapidly gentrifying Brooklyn neighborhood. Hemphill’s fellowship will deepen her understanding of social science research on structural inequality, the roots of residential segregation, and the impact of gentrification and immigration on schools.