Berkeley’s Sociology Department is known around the world for its excellence in research and teaching. Our faculty advance cutting edge research and teach in most sociological specialities. Our PhDs are leaders in universities and research centers across the US and in many other countries. And our BAs populate the ranks of innumerable professions, bringing with them the skills and special perspective of Berkeley sociology.
We are proud to make these contributions from the world’s leading public university. At Berkeley, we combine intellectual rigor with a commitment to public service through our research, teaching, and service on campus and beyond.
For the past six decades, Berkeley’s Sociology Department has consistently been ranked among the world’s top sociology departments. Our graduate program is ranked #1 in the latest U.S. News and World Report, and our undergrad degree is currently the best in the US according to College Factual and features on Grad Reports’ Best College List 2020.
Prof. Einstein served graduate students as a model of prudence in remaining unfashionably true to the grand…
Protectors of Pluralism
Protectors of Pluralism
Why do some religious groups protect victims of genocide while others do not? This book argues that local religious minorities are more likely to save persecuted groups. Two reinforcing mechanisms link minority status to rescue operations. First, religious minorities are better able to set up clandestine organizations because their members are more committed. Second, religious minorities empathize with targets of purification campaigns, imbuing their networks with preferences that lead them to resist genocide. A geo-referenced dataset of Jewish evas...
Departmental Colloquium Series
Sunmin Kim "The Unruly Facts of Race: The Politics of Knowledge Production in the Early Twentieth Century Immigration Debate"
Monday, October 12, 2026 - 2:00 pm - Monday, October 12, 2026 - 3:30 pm
Blumer Room - 402 Social Sciences Building
Abstract: The Unruly Facts of Race explains how American ideas about race and ethnicity were transformed in the early twentieth century as an unintended consequence of anti-immigrant mobilization. Immigration restrictionist politicians believed that the United States should be a White, Anglo-Saxon, and Protestant nation. However, when they mobilized researchers to gather data in an attempt to rationalize their aims, they were met with unruly facts that did not support their racial project. Newer European immigrants, the data showed, were not much different from descendants of earlier immigrants from northern Europe. When facts failed to support their initial aims, exclusionist politicians instead turned to race as a marker of ineluctable difference. The United States transitioned to a country that encompassed various European groups but excluded non-White immigrants, as they were deemed too different to become a part of the nation. Kim’s analysis shows that throughout US history, the opportunity for belonging for some immigrants was predicated on the exclusion of others. He reveals that the selection and control of immigrants are core principles of the American nation-building project.
Bio: Sunmin Kim is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Dartmouth College. He examines the nexus between race, immigration, and national belonging through the lens of knowledge production. Employing archival work, survey analysis, and in-depth interviews, Professor Kim studies how categories such as race, ethnicity, and citizenship are socially constructed through the work of social scientists, government officials, and activists. Professor Kim tracks how these actors’ work manifests in different domains, such as social sciences, immigration law, public opinion, and electoral politics. He has written about race and immigration policy, Asian American politics and identity, the construction of public opinion, and methods of historical sociology. His first book is The Unruly Fact of Race (2026), and he is at work on a second book, on the role of social science research in Japanese internment camps during WWII. Professor Kim’s research has appeared in numerous outlets, including Theory and Society, The Du Bois Review, Ethnic and Racial Studies, and Qualitative Sociology.
Co-sponsored by the Berkeley Interdisciplinary Migration Initiative.