Logo for InfluenceWatch InfluenceWatch

Donate
Person

Dorian Warren

Nationality:

American
Born:

September 7, 1976
Occupation(s):

President, Center for Community Change Action

President, Center for Community Change

Co-Chair, Economic Security Project

Fellow, Roosevelt Institute

Contact InfluenceWatch with suggested edits or tips for additional profiles.

Dorian Warren is an American academic and left-of-center activist. Warren has been described as a “progressive scholar, organizer and media personality” focused on left-of-center social justice, racial, gender, and economic issues. 1

As of December 2024, Dorian Warren was the co-president of Community Change, a left-of-center nonprofit focused on poverty, race, housing policy, and the treatment of released prisoners. 2

Background and Education

Dorian Warren was born on September 7, 1976 and grew up on Chicago’s South Side. He graduated from Kenwood Academy High School in 1994 and received a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. In 2005, he received a Ph.D. in Political Science from Yale University. 3 4

Warren has been described as a “progressive scholar, organizer and media personality” focused on left-of-center social justice, racial, gender, and economic issues. 1

Career

Academia

While studying for his doctorate, Dorian Warren was a Peters Fellow at the University of Notre Dame from 2003 to 2004. The Erskine A. Peters Dissertation Year Fellowship supports doctoral candidates of African-American descent writing dissertations in the arts, humanities, and social sciences. Beginning in 2004, Warren was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Chicago, later becoming a member of the visiting faculty until 2006. 2 5

After receiving his Ph.D., Warren was an associate professor at Columbia University from 2006 to 2015. At Columbia, Warren was the co-director of the Program on Labor Law and Policy. 2 6

Over the course of his career in and out of academia, Dorian Warren has published a large collection of academic research primarily focused on issues of race from a left-of-center perspective. For example, in 2017 Warren co-authored a book entitled The Hidden Rules of Race which argued that America has “implicitly racist and exclusionary rules of our current economic, education, health, criminal justice, and electoral systems.” Warren also authored other papers, chapters, and research, including works entitled “Race, Gender, and the Rebirth of Trade,” “Introduction: Rewriting the Rules of Racial Inequality: An Agenda for Structural Inclusion,” “Racism Revised: Courts, Labor Law, and the Institutional Construction of Racial Animus,” and “Contesting the Racial Division of Labor From Below.” 7 8

Warren has received research fellowships and grants from the left-of-center Ford Foundation; the Russell Sage Foundation, a left-leaning social science foundation focused on social inequality, immigration, and low-income Americans; the Public Welfare Foundation, a left-leaning grantmaking organization focused on criminal justice and pro-union policy; and the Murphy Institute at the City University of New York (CUNY). 9

Media

During his time as an associate professor at Columbia University, Dorian Warren also spent over two years from 2014 to 2016 as a contributor on MSNBC, where he was a contributor, host, and producer of the online show “Nerding Out.” 2 6

Beginning in 2012, Warren joined the editorial board of The Nation, a social-democratic magazine that has received support from left-of-center organizations like the Ford Foundation and Open Society Foundations. 2

Warren has also made guest appearances on NBC nightly news, ABC, CNN, MSNBC, BET, BBC, Bloomberg News, and National Public Radio (NPR) as a commentator on political affairs and has written articles published in left-of-center publications such as Salon, the Washington Post, the New York Times, and Ebony.com. 6

Political Activism

From 2005 through 2016, Dorian Warren was a board member of Race Forward, a left-of-center racial and identity politics organization. 2

In 2008, Warren become a board member of Community Change, a left-of-center nonprofit that focuses on issues of poverty, race, housing policy, and the treatment of released prisoners. Warren retained his position on the board until being named vice president of the organization in 2016 and co-president in 2018, a position he held as of December 2024. While vice president of Community Change, from 2016 to 2018 Warren was also the president of Center for Community Change Action, the group’s advocacy and political action arm that supports left-of-center immigration policies and increased child-care and housing subsidies. 2

While Warren has been president of Community Change, the organization has received funding and sponsorship from a large number of left-of-center organizations, including Democracy Alliance, the SEIU, AFL-CIO, Planned Parenthood Action Fund, and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Open Society Foundation, the California Endowment, the Marguerite Casey Foundation, Fidelity Charitable Gift, and the National Immigration Law Center. 10 11 12

From 2011 to 2018, Warren was a fellow at the Roosevelt Institute, a left-leaning think tank that asserts that the system of free-market capitalism is inherently unjust. 2

In 2016, Warren co-founded and was a board chair of the Economic Security Project (ESP), a left-of-center initiative that advocates for the federal government to distribute “unconditional cash for Americans” through a universal basic income. ESP is housed within the Hopewell Fund, a fiscal sponsorship nonprofit managed by Arabella Advisors. 2

In 2020, Warren created a podcast through The Nation called System Check that he co-hosted with Melissa Harris-Perry, a far-left academic and former MSNBC host. The show focused on the Black Lives Matter movement, “climate justice,” the “unjust immigration regime,” and voting rights. 13

From 2022 to 2023, Warren produced a podcast called the Deep Dive on the Takeaway with Melissa Harris-Perry. Episodes of the show focused on abolishing the police, the death penalty, and sex work. Warren would act as a fill-in host for Harris-Perry when she worked at MSNBC and also stepped in as a fill in host for the “Now with Alex Atner” show. 1 14

After the 2024 presidential election, Waren attributed former President Donald Trump’s election victory to a lack of turnout among traditional Democratic voters, a failure of Democratic messaging on immigration, and the influence of conservative media. Warren also argued that following the election, Democrats must protect illegal aliens from deportation. 15

Warren also sits on the boards of Working Partnerships USA, a left-of-center community and labor activist organization; the Leadership Conference Education Fund, the education arm of the left-of-center advocacy group Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights that advocates for center-left views on voting rights, civil rights, and other issues; and the National Employment Law Project, a New York-based think tank that advocates for labor and employment legislation. 16

Political Donations

According to the Federal Election Commission (FEC), Dorian Warren has made 10 FEC-reportable donations to Democratic candidates or Democratic aligned groups from 2008 to 2024, including a total of $620 to Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, a total of $1,750 from 2019 to 2021 to Pramila for Congress to support far-left U.S. Representative Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), and $500 in 2024 to Cori Bush for Congress to support far-left U.S. Representative Cori Bush (D-MO). 17 18

Awards

In 2013, while an associate professor at Columbia University and a contributor at MSNBC, Dorian Warren was named among the 100 people making history today by left-of-center African-American-focused media outlet TheGrio. Upon being named, TheGrio praised Warren for being an Ivy League professor that “continues grass-roots activism with unions and community organizations.” 9

References

  1. “Dorian Warren.” Economic Opportunity Funders. Accessed December 13, 2024. https://eofnetwork.org/gist_team/dorian-warren/.
  2. “Dorian Warren (He/Him): Experience.” LinkedIn. Accessed December 13, 2024. https://www.linkedin.com/in/dorian-warren-98520a6/details/experience/.
  3. “Dorian Warren Wikipedia, Partner, Spouse, Age Bio, Married (MSNBC).” Marathi.tv. Accessed December 13, 2024. https://www.marathi.tv/political-analyst/dorian-warren/.
  4. “Dorian Warren (He/Him): Education.” LinkedIn. Accessed December 13, 2024. https://www.linkedin.com/in/dorian-warren-98520a6/details/education/.
  5. Garvey, Michael O. “ND’s Erskine Peters Fellows flourish in doctoral work.” Notre Dame News. February 1, 2009. Accessed December 13, 2024. https://news.nd.edu/news/nds-erskine-peters-fellows-flourish-in-doctoral-work/.
  6. “Dorian Warren.” Campaign for America’s Future. Accessed December 13, 2024.
  7. “10 – What Will It Take to Rewrite the Hidden Rules of Race.” Cambridge University Press. 15 September 2017. Accessed December 13, 2024. https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/hidden-rules-of-race/what-will-it-take-to-rewrite-the-hidden-rules-of-race/7E1010C06B12688AD3D4D1E93B2D0936.
  8. “Dorian Warren.” Academia.edu. Accessed December 13, 2024. https://dorianwarren.academia.edu/research#papers.
  9. TheGrioStaff. “TheGrio’s 100: Dorian Warren, Columbia University scholar-activist.” TheGrio. January 15, 2013. Accessed December 13, 2024. https://thegrio.com/2013/01/15/thegrios-100-dorian-warren-columbia-university-scholar-activist/.
  10. Change Champion Awards.” Wayback Machine: Center for Community Change. Archived April 25, 2017. Accessed December 13, 2024. https://web.archive.org/web/20170425234044/https://www.communitychange.org/awards/.
  11. Schoffstall, Joe. “Donors of Anti-Trump ‘Resistance’ Group Revealed.” Washington Free Beacon. October 05, 2017. Accessed December 13, 2024. http://freebeacon.com/politics/donors-anti-trump-resistance-group-revealed/.
  12. Return of Organization Exempt from Income Tax (Form 990). Center for Community Change. Part I. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/520888113/202322269349301257/full
  13. “System Check.” Dorian Warren. Accessed December 13, 2024. https://www.dorianwarren.com/system-check-podcast.
  14. “Deep Wive with MHP and Dorian Warren.” WNYC Studios. Accessed December 13, 2024. https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/takeaway/projects/deep-dive-dorian-warren.
  15. Goodheart, Jessica. “Can democrats Get Their Voters Off the Couch?” Capital & Man. November 28, 2024. December 13, 2024. https://capitalandmain.com/can-democrats-get-their-voters-off-the-couch.
  16. “Dorian Warren.” Dorian Warren. Accessed December 13, 2024. https://www.dorianwarren.com/biography.
  17. “Individual Contributions: Dorian Warren.” FEC. Accessed December 13, 2024.  https://www.fec.gov/data/receipts/individual-contributions/?contributor_name=dorian%20warren.
  18. Bowman, Bridget, Julie Tsirkin and Kyle Stewart. “Rep. Cori Bush loses Democratic primary after campaign onslaught from pro-Israel groups.” NBC News. August 7, 2024. Accessed December 13, 2024. https://www.campaignforamericasfuture.org/authors/dorian-warren/.https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/rep-cori-bush-loses-democratic-primary-campaign-onslaught-israel-group-rcna165306.
  See an error? Let us know!