$10 million gift from James M. and Cathleen D. Stone deepens graduate center’s research on inequality

A $10 million gift from the James M. and Cathleen D. Stone Foundation will strengthen the CUNY Graduate Center’s leadership in researching the causes, nature, and consequences of socio-economic inequality.

James M. Stone is a Harvard‑trained economist who served as Massachusetts insurance commissioner and later as chairman of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission under President Carter. He later founded and still leads The Plymouth Rock Company, a major auto and homeowners insurer, has served on boards such as ProPublica, The Boston Globe, and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, and is a significant philanthropist funding “Stone Centers” on inequality and environmental initiatives with his wife, Cathleen Douglas Stone.

Cathleen Douglas Stone is an environmental lawyer, civic leader, and philanthropist who serves as president of the James M. and Cathleen D. Stone Foundation and is a leading funder of climate, conservation, and racial‑justice initiatives.

Trained as an attorney with a B.A. and J.D. from American University and an LL.M. from Georgetown, she was a partner at Foley, Hoag & Eliot in Boston before becoming the City of Boston’s first chief of environmental services in the 1990s, where she helped launch “Sustainable Boston” and played a central role in creating the Boston Harbor Islands National Park.

She has since founded or led efforts such as the Stone Living Lab at UMass Boston, the Stone Center for Environmental Stewardship at UC Berkeley, and the MAAH Stone Book Award, while serving on boards including Boston Harbor Now, The Wilderness Society, NPR, The Nature Conservancy, and the Museum of African American History, earning recognition such as the Eleanor Roosevelt “Following In Her Footsteps” Award, the Norman B. Leventhal city‑building award, and an honorary degree from University College London.

The $10 million gift supports the work of the Graduate Center’s James M. and Cathleen D. Stone Center on Socio-Economic Inequality, which the foundation helped launch in 2016, and comes at a moment of widening economic disparity.

The new funding will propel the center’s rigorous analysis of inequality and its impact on politics, the economy, and society.

“The extreme concentration of wealth today poses a fundamental threat to democracy,” said Jim Stone of the James M. and Cathleen D. Stone Foundation.

“For over a decade, my wife Cathy and I have invested in research aimed at understanding and addressing rising inequality worldwide, with a particular emphasis on wealth concentration. The Graduate Center’s Stone Center was one of our earliest centers, and it has distinguished itself by assembling the largest community of senior scholars devoted to the study of wealth inequality. In addition, it hosts the GC Wealth Project, which has become an important resource for journalists, scholars, and policymakers. We are very pleased to see increased attention to issues of inequality, both at the Graduate Center and around the world.”

“CUNY’s public mission is rooted in expanding opportunity for all New Yorkers, and that requires a clear understanding of the forces that sustain socio-economic inequality,” said CUNY Chancellor Félix V. Matos Rodríguez.

“The Stone Center advances that understanding with research that informs public debate and guides effective policy. We are deeply grateful to Jim and Cathy Stone for their continued support, which strengthens the Graduate Center’s role as a leader in scholarship dedicated to the public good.”

The Stone Center’s six senior scholars are prolific researchers and writers, known for their groundbreaking work in economics, sociology, and political science. The center’s scholars share a commitment to scholarship that is data-driven, interdisciplinary, and oriented toward policy and institutional change.

The center has also established an esteemed postdoctoral scholars program, with four postdocs in residence at a time. So far, the center has hosted 14 postdoctoral scholars and will welcome two more this September. Many go on to tenure-track faculty positions.

The new funding will support 10 additional postdoctoral scholars, many Graduate Center Ph.D. student researchers, and the Stone Center staff.

In 2023, the center launched its comprehensive GC Wealth Project website, offering the latest research and information on worldwide wealth and wealth inequalities. The site provides unprecedented access to curated data and scholarship useful to policymakers, researchers, the press, and the interested public.

“The influential, timely work of our Stone Center is core to the mission of the Graduate Center, which for nearly 65 years has been dedicated to generating and sharing new knowledge that leads to a more just and equitable society,” said Graduate Center President Joshua C. Brumberg.

“We are grateful to Jim and Cathy Stone for their prescience in seeding our Stone Center and for their generous ongoing support of it.”

“My colleagues and I at the Stone Center are excited by this crucial new gift,” said Graduate Center Professor Janet C. Gornick, director of the Stone Center.

“We have ambitious plans to deepen and extend our ongoing research on socio-economic inequality and on its institutional and policy drivers. We will continue our commitment to bringing our work to diverse public audiences through our communications program and our longstanding partnership with the Graduate Center’s Office of Public Programs. I am honored by the trust that the Stone Foundation has placed in me and our team and immensely grateful for the foundation’s continued intellectual and financial support.”

The Stone Center was founded at the Graduate Center in the fall of 2016 with an initial $2.5 million gift from the Stone Foundation. The foundation has continued to support the center’s work, notably its GC Wealth Project and postdoctoral scholars program, with additional gifts. The latest $10 million donation brings the foundation’s total level of support for the Graduate Center’s Stone Center to $24.36 million.

The Stone Center’s senior scholars include Graduate Center Professors Miles Corak (Economics), Janet Gornick (Political Science and Sociology), Paul Krugman (Economics), Leslie McCall (Sociology and Political Science ), and Branko Milanovic (Research Professor). Salvatore Morelli, now professor of public economics at Roma Tre University, directs the GC Wealth Project.

In addition to the senior and postdoctoral scholars, the center engages many Graduate Center students as research assistants and supports them through three small-grant programs.

Forty inequality scholars from universities and institutes around the world serve as Stone Center Affiliated Scholars.

The center also houses the U.S. Office of LIS, the renowned cross-national data center based in Luxembourg.