2026 The Fight for Local Autonomy in the New South
About: Many majority-black, majority-poor cities in the New South have a broken relationship with their states. These states have increasingly withdrawn support and legal authority from their local governments. This means that cities cannot solve complex challenges related to crime, school performance, aging infrastructure, weather-related disasters, and more—but states are not taking responsibility for those challenges either. Yet such cities lack the in-house lawyers and researchers to identify and advocate for reforms to the laws inhibiting local autonomy and quality of life. In the summer of 2026, I’ll be working on two projects related to this problem in the city of Jackson, Mississippi: (1) to research the city’s legal/political history with the state and assess the limitations on the city’s authority (for a public-facing report to state and local officials), and (2) to write a longform feature article about one part of city government (the schools) that successfully fought to maintain its autonomy and has shown tremendous progress. An undergraduate RA will help me with both projects. We will be using interviews, details from local history, and graphic illustrations to bring local government to life as a basis for organizers on the ground to inspire reinvestment in city politics.
Qualifications: Strong writing, editing, and research background; interest in topics of poverty, inequality, and urban history; experience with creating tables and graphics (and ideally maps) from data. I would love to work with a student raised in the South and/or with family history in the region, but students with other backgrounds are most welcome to apply.
Base stipend is $8500 with up to $1500 additional stipend based on financial need.
- Research from social science, urban history, and local news sources
- Interview transcriptions
- Editing and workshopping text
- Preparing graphic illustrations (such as charts and maps) depicting local statistics
- This is a full-time position; students are expected to participate 35+ hours/week for 10 consecutive weeks. Participants are not permitted to engage in another full-time internship, job, or volunteer opportunity (whether funded by Stanford or otherwise). They also may not hold a part-time internship, job, or volunteer opportunity unless their faculty mentors or program mentors have approved these arrangements before the start of the summer. Students also cannot receive an additional VPUE part-time grant within the same quarter.
- Students must be current undergraduates in good standing at Stanford during the summer quarter; those graduating in June are not eligible.
- Students may not receive both academic units and a stipend for any single project activity.
- Students pursuing a coterminal MA degree are eligible ONLY IF 1) they have not conferred their undergraduate degree AND 2) they are in the undergraduate (not graduate) tuition group.
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Students may not be serving a suspension or be on a Leave of Absence (LOA) while using grant funding.
