Richard L. Zweigenhaft

The articles in this section on power and diversity were written by social psychologist Richard L. Zweigenhaft. Richie is the Dana Professor of Psychology Emeritus at Guilford College in Greensboro, North Carolina, where he taught for 45 years after joining the faculty in 1974. He is the first author on four books (with G. William Domhoff as co-author), three of which were updated in two or more later editions: Jews In the Protestant Establishment (1982), Blacks in the White Elite, (1991/2003), The New CEOs (2011/2014), and Diversity in the Power Elite (1998/2006/2018).

In keeping with his focus on diversity, he authored a 2020 memoir on how diversity came to Guilford College: Jews, Palestinians, and Friends: 45 Years at a Quaker College (see also a review of the book in Academic Labor). He is the co-editor of Collaboration in Psychological Science: Behind the Scenes (2017), in which many different psychologists who have co-authored articles or books with others, including Zweigenhaft himself, discuss the benefits and pleasures, as well as the trials and tribulations, of being a co-author.

Diversity in the Corporate Community

• The Unexpected and Dramatic Increase in Diversity on Top-50 Corporate Boards (2024)
• Diversity Update: Fortune 500 CEOs from 2000 to 2020 (2021)
• The Rise and Fall of Diversity at the Top (2016)
• Diversity Among CEOs and Corporate Directors (2013)

Diversity in Government

• Diversity in Presidential Cabinets, from FDR to Trump to Biden (2021)
• The Election of 2018: Diversity in the 116th Congress (2018)
• Who Represents America: Diversity in Congress, 1972-2016 (2018)

Miscellaneous

• Who's Jewish These Days? The Meaning of the Surprising False Positives of George Santos and Anna Paulina Luna for Research-Oriented Social Scientists (2023)
• Perpetuating the Horatio Alger Myth: Fortune 500 CEOs, Elite Education, and the Corporate Media (2023)
• Maximizing Corporate Profits or Doing the Right Thing? White Male Fortune 500 CEOs, New CEOs, and the Ukraine Morality Test (2022)
• The Role of Elite Education for White Men, White Women, and People of Color in the U.S. Corporate Elite (2015)

Teaching Power and Diversity

This site also hosts two of Zweigenhaft's articles about his experiences teaching college students about power and diversity:

• An invited talk about social class and social justice that he gave to the student body at Middlesex School in Concord, MA, in September, 2006. Middlesex is a prestigious New England boarding school for grades 9-12, and has been featured in some of Zweigenhaft's research.
• A 2009 article he wrote for Radical Teacher magazine about teaching a course on the American upper class. The course begins with the book The Protestant Establishment (1964) — about the historical exclusion of Catholics and Jews — and ends with Zweigenhaft's Diversity in the Power Elite (1998/2006/2018).