不平等是当前关于机会和公平的辩论的核心，牵涉到许多当代政策问题。公众和学术界对不平等的兴趣日益浓厚，这不仅是因为美国和其他先进工业国家收入和财富差距的历史性扩大，还因为种族、民族、性别和社会阶层的不平等正在以戏剧性和复杂的方式演变。康奈尔大学是不平等奖学金的领先中心，从其许多部门和学院汲取力量。
康奈尔大学不平等研究中心（CSI）致力于了解社会和经济不平等的模式，原因和后果。CSI促进新的前沿研究，培养本科生和研究生，鼓励不平等研究人员之间的思想交流，并将研究成果传播给更广泛的公众。它支持基于证据和系统的研究和知识，无论是开发支撑不平等的社会过程的正式模型的“基础”研究，还是评估影响机会平等的政策的预期或意外后果的“应用”研究。
CSI位于艺术与科学学院的社会学系，但拥有来自校园周围的100多个教职员工附属机构。教师附属机构学习各种主题，包括劳动力市场流程与收入不平等，教育程度和从学校到工作的过渡，贫穷和无家可归，代际流动和机会平等，住宅隔离、社区和城市贫困，种族和民族不平等、移民，改变家庭形式及其对儿童发展的影响。
Inequality is at the heart of the current debate on opportunity and equity, with many contemporary policy implications. Public and academic interest in inequality is growing, not only because of the historic widening income and wealth gap in the United States and other advanced industrial countries, but also because inequalities in race, ethnicity, gender, and social class are evolving in dramatic and complex ways. Cornell is a leading center for unequal scholarship, drawing strength from its many departments and colleges.
Cornell University's Center for Inequality Research (CSI) works to understand the patterns, causes, and consequences of social and economic inequality. CSI promotes new cutting-edge research, trains undergraduate and graduate students, encourages the exchange of ideas among unequal researchers, and disseminates research findings to the wider public. It supports evidence- and systems-based research and knowledge, whether "basic" research to develop formal models of social processes underpinning inequality, or "applied" research that assesses the intended or unintended consequences of policies that affect equal opportunity.
CSI is located in the sociology department in the College of Arts and Sciences, but has more than 100 faculty and staff affiliates from around campus. Faculty affiliations study a variety of topics, including labor market processes and income inequality, educational attainment and transition from school to work, poverty and homelessness, intergenerational mobility and equality of opportunity, residential segregation, community and urban poverty, racial and ethnic inequality, immigration, changing family forms and their impact on child development.