Sociology
Professor of Sociology
Loyola University Chicago
Meghan Burke was Professor of Sociology at Illinois Wesleyan University, where she taught from 2009 until 2021, when she left higher education to pursue an industry career in DEI and social science research. Dr. Burke is the author of three books: Racial Ambivalence in Diverse Communities: Whiteness and the Power of Color-Blind Ideologies, about racially diverse neighborhoods in Chicago; Race, Gender, and Class in the Tea Party: What the Movement Reflects about Mainstream Ideologies; and most recently, Colorblind Racism.
During her academic career, she also guest-edited a special issue of Sociological Perspectives on “New Frontiers in the Study of Colorblind Racism,” for which she also earned an American Sociological Association Fund for the Advancement of the Discipline grant to hold a national summit on contemporary racism at IWU. Dr. Burke has also published articles in The Sociological Quarterly, Sociological Perspectives, Critical Sociology, and Teaching Sociology, among others. In 2016 she earned the Midwest Sociological Society Early Career Scholarship Award, and her paper, “Racing Left and Right: Color-Blind Racism’s Dominance across the U.S. Political Spectrum” won The Sociological Quarterly’s Best Article Award for 2017–2018.
On her campus, Dr. Burke co-developed and directed the Engaging Diversity pre-orientation program, a three-day intensive program for incoming white students to deeply consider white privilege and antiracism so that they can work as partners for social and racial justice. This program was featured in The Chronicle of Higher Education and Inside Higher Ed. Dr. Burke was also named 2013 Professor of the Year and Advisor of the Year in 2017 and 2020 by IWU students, and the IWU Community awarded her the Inclusive Excellence Leadership Award in 2020. She was also named among Nerd Wallet’s 40 under 40: Professors Who Inspire.
Books
Racial Ambivalence in Diverse Communities: Whiteness and the Power of Color-Blind Ideologies
Race, Gender, and Class in the Tea Party: What the Movement Reflects about Mainstream Ideologies