Richard C. Fording is the Marilyn Williams Elmore and John Durr Elmore Endowed Professor of Political Science at the University of Alabama. He earned his B.A. at the University of Florida (1986), and his Ph.D. from Florida State University (1998). His primary teaching and research interests include public policy, race and politics, state politics, social movements, and quantitative methodology. He is the author or coauthor of articles appearing in a variety of journals, including American Political Science Review, American Sociological Review, American Journal of Political Science, American Journal of Sociology and The Journal of Politics. He is the coauthor of Disciplining the Poor: Neoliberal Paternalism and the Persistent Power of Race (University of Chicago Press) and Hard White: The Mainstreaming of Racism in American Politics (Oxford University Press, 2020). He is the co-founder and co-director of Return My Vote, a community-engaged learning and research project dedicated to voting rights restoration for Alabamians with felony convictions.