The mission of the UC Center for New Racial Studies, based at UC Santa Barbara, is to explore race through multidisciplinary research during an era that, with President Barack Obama's election, is considered by some to be post-racial. Conversely, it is also a time still fraught with deepening racial stratification, inequality and differences.
The center was founded in 2009 with a $1.73 million grant from the UC Office of the President to foster innovative teaching and research on new dynamics of race and racism.