Enabling Equity Assessments of Government Programs: Law, Policy, and Methods

Speaker: Prof. Dan Ho (Stanford: School of Law, Political Science, Computer Science)

Date: Mon, Nov 13th at 3pm Pacific

Place: HDSI 123, 1st floor multipurpose room and Zoom (https://ucsd.zoom.us/j/95047724642)
*** note this is the new HDSI building next to Warren Lecture Hall, not the old HDSI location in the San Diego Supercomputer Center building (UCSD maps, Google maps pin, enter from West / Warren Lecture Hall side)
RSVP: https://forms.gle/1tGjJm5KtMZ77RCH9

Title: Enabling Equity Assessments of Government Programs: Law, Policy, and Methods

Abstract: Governments have increasingly mandated equity assessments for potential demographic disparities in programs and services. This talk will consider some of the legal, policy, and methodological challenges for carrying out such mandates, particularly in the public sector context. First, the talk will discuss emerging tensions between informational privacy and equity assessments, as illustrated by the data minimization principle under the Privacy Act of 1974. Second, it will discuss the range of methods available to improve disparity assessments, including imputation, record linkage, surveys, and form collection. Third, it will illustrate these tensions with a case study of an equity assessment of racial disparities of IRS tax audits.