Critical Racism Data Lab

Critical Racism Studies is the future of the science of race, ethnicity, and nation, and its referendum for transformative social change. Studies within this tradition — previously what I have conceptualized as “critical studies of race and racism” — center racism in scientific theory, design, and analysis. Instead of looking at the constructs of race, ethnicity, and nation as distinct and, even, incongruent or their distinctiveness as inconsequential, critical studies of race and racism look at how data can differentiate how racism is a structural cause that demands a structural solution.

I believe that data can be a tool for justice in this right. Responsible training in the collection, use, and application of data can offer more ways for the tools of science to be leveraged for more than their “master’s” delusions — bad or good. The study of racism through the practice of radical Black feminist thought and theory can expand the evidence that science can bring to communities that are hyper-marginalized by racial, ethnic, and class oppression. The whole of my scientific endeavors has been geared under this assumption. The functions of the Critical Racism Data Lab is aimed at this purpose.

In the first of three lectures for the 2019 Hubert Blalock Lecture Series — “The Promise of Nested Modules for Critical Studies of Race and Racism”, I discussed a unique conceptualization of racism to make sense of how researchers approach the scientific method when studying race, ethnicity, nation, and its intersections with many forms of social marginalization. I see this type of conceptualization can be helpful in allowing a new generation of researchers — in and outside the academy — to differentiate how aspects of prior research can be leveraged for their own sake, instead of for the intentions and goals of their “masters”. I believe it also can be used to make sense of ways to further the research agendas of the new state of science — for instance, how scientists have isolated advances in the theory, methods, and measurement of structural racism to advance research on health and society (Wien, Miller, and Kramer 2023).

Critical Racism Studies incorporates research that:

• Holds central the role of racism in social categorization and social inequality
• Explicitly names racism as a theoretical tool to understand a phenomenon
• Operationalizes racism in empirical models

The Critical Racism Data Lab embraces research within this tradition, regardless of form.

The Critical Racism Data Lab is currently located at Tarbutton Hall 104.

What Does an Intersectional Sampling Design Look Like?

Developing a sampling frame for LGBTQ+ women requires a new generation of social surveys that are equipped and adaptable to build relationships with a people in our everyday and ordinary communities who are hypermarginalized. Sampling frames are central to providing a basis for extrapolating information to a broader set of persons that one can know — or, know of — themselves, even whens said persons are seemingly “alike”. Yet, the social survey is an ever more contested tool to understand the vulnerable population, much less communities who have been structurally invisible within it.

Federal surveys do not ask LGBTQ+ identifiers, much less provide capacity to understand the matrices of experiences that are carried along with a person’s sexual orientation and gender identity. Even then, how communities negotiate sexual and gender identities expands through social intersections of marginality marked by race, ethnicity, and nation (ethnoraciality), socioeconomic status and social class, and aging and the life course.

In a partnership between Justice Work, The Race and Policing Project, and Emory University’s Department of Sociology, the National LGBTQ+ Women’s Community Survey (Emory #Study00002118) was fielded to address a dearth of knowledge on the impacts of discrimination and violence on lesbian, bi, pansexual, asexual, trans and non-binary women who partner with women. This survey is part of an IRB-Approved continued enrollment research initiative for LGBTQ+ women. Anyone over the age of 18 who has ever identified as a woman is eligible to participate in the study. We are innovating the social survey as a tool for social change in an anti-racist, feminist-rooted, gender-expansive transformative society.

How Did We Do It

Where We Are Now

We also provide group comparisons for respondents who affirm any of nine (9) ethnoracial identities: Black, Latinx, Asian, Middle Eastern, American Indian or Alaskan Native, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, Multiracial, White, or Other Ethnoracial Group.

The Urvashi Vaid Data Portal covers all components of our survey prompts organized across twenty (2) broad concepts, including: Women Identity, Demographic, Gender and Sexuality, Housing, Social Network, Religion, Family Network, Family Structure, Housing Composition, Children, Sexual Life, Intimacy, Experiences of Violence, Eduction, Policing, Incarceration, Health and Well-Being, and Civic Engagement.

The result—the Urvashi Vaid LGBTQ+ Women’s Survey—transforms a community-centered project into a dynamic, data-driven tool for advancing social justice. Access to the survey data is restricted to partnered organizations and registered community members. Request access to the Urvashi Vaid Data Portal.

The fruits of our labor are just beginning to bear.

We are partnering with the Emory Department of Sociology to continue enrollment in the broader Urvashi Vaid LGBTQ Women’s Survey. If you are someone over the age of 18 who has ever identified as a woman, please take and share the survey

We are accepting applications for restricted access to respondent data for community purposes under the terms and conditions of protecting highly sensitive, de-identified information about survey participants. Request restricted access to respondent data for community purposes.

We are accepting applications for use of the Urvashi Vaid Data Portal for research purposes. Only registered community members are eligible to use data for research purposes, pending approval of additional information under the terms and conditions of registration to the Urvashi Vaid Data Portal for community purposes.

We are archiving all survey-related data with the Resource Center for Minority Data under the restricted access protocols of the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR).

Please send any questions and/or concerns about the survey data to Emory University’s Principal Investigator Dr. Alyasah Ali Sewell at alyasah dot ali dot sewell at emory dot edu.

To access the data portal, you must be a partner organization or apply to become a community partner. This is for security reasons to protect our data and in recognition of the contribution that partner organizations have made to the success of this project. To maintain the security and accessibility of our survey, any and all future data releases will be distributed only to registered users with the Data Portal. Check below to see if your organization is on the list of our partner organizations.

The data will be restricted for exclusive use by registered users, and their co-authors, until October 1^st 2027.

Terms and Conditions for Use of The Urvashi Vaid Data Portal

Access to the data is granted to the named individuals only. You may not share registration details with unregistered users.

We encourage the use of the data for the development of resources, tools, academic papers, data visualization, presentations, advocacy documents, opinion pieces, and other similar materials.  Registered users can co-author or co-produce with any person, but at least one of the authors / producers listed must be a registered user who has agreed to the data portal terms and conditions.   You may only share the data with an unregistered user when actively collaborating on a specific project.

Non-registered users may not publish any product using these data without a registered user working with them.

​​Registered users may never sell the data to any person or organization.

The data will be restricted for exclusive use by registered users, and their co-authors, until October 1^st 2027.

NO WARRANTIES OR LIABILITY

In no event shall the Critical Racism Data Lab (institution) or any entity of Emory University (institution) be liable to any entity or person for direct, indirect, special, incidental, or consequential damages, including lost profits, arising out of the use of this Data, even if Institution has been advised of the possibility of such damage. Institution specifically disclaims any and all warranties, express and implied, including, but not limited to, any implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose. Institution’s data is provided “as is.” Institution has no obligation to provide updates or modifications of Institution’s Data that Institution may create.

Copies of all products produced with this data by registered users should be shared with the Critical Racism Data Lab (dataportal [at] criticalracismdatalab [dot] com)

All and any use of the survey data must be cited as.

Suggested Citation: Sewell, Alyasah Ali and Sutherland, Carla. 2023. “Data Portal of the National LGBTQ+ Women’s Community Survey, 2021-2022.” Critical Racism Data Lab: Atlanta, GA. Retrieved August 1, 2025: (scholarblogs.emory/lgbtqsurvey/dataportal)

Research methods to study racism have pushed the fields of social sciences to edge because the most intransigent forms of ethnoracial marginalization and oppression defy the individual’s own awareness and evaluation of unfair or discriminatory treatment or attitudes. A data equity model of quantitative social sciences requires that we de-center the individual as the primary site of importance and intervention in understanding and dismantling the systems of oppression that compromise the very validity and reliability of research aimed at identifying the role of racism in sedimenting inequality into the structures of society.

Public Lectures