Myers-Lipton, Scott
Professor, Sociology and Interdisciplinary Social Sciences
Preferred: smlipton@sjsu.edu
Alternate: smlipton@gmail.com
Telephone
Preferred: (408) 924-5761
Interests
Social action, poverty and wealth, institutional racism and sexism, community change, and service-learning
Education
Doctor of Philosophy, University Of Colorado at Boulder, 1994
Master of Arts, Humanities, San Francisco State University, 1989
Bio
Dr. Scott Myers-Lipton is a Professor of Sociology at San José State University. He is the author of five books, including:
- CHANGE! A Guide to Teaching Social Action (2022, Routledge);
- CHANGE! A Student Guide to Social Action (2018, Routledge);
- Ending Extreme Inequality: An Economic Bill of Rights Approach to Eliminate Poverty (2015, Routledge);
- Rebuild America: Solving the Economic Crisis through Civic Work (2010, Paradigm);
- Social Solutions to Poverty: America’s Struggle to Build a Just Society (2006, Paradigm).
In addition, Dr. Myers-Lipton is the author of the Silicon Valley Pain Index and Racial and Social Justice at San José University.
Along with his students, Dr. Myers-Lipton co-founded the successful effort to raise the minimum wage in San José from $8 to $10, and the Gulf Coast Civic Works Campaign, an initiative to develop 100,000 prevailing wage jobs for local and displaced workers after Hurricane Katrina. In total, he has supported his social action students as they have won 15 campaigns since 2006. In addition, Dr. Myers-Lipton has worked to help students develop solutions to poverty and inequality by taking them to live at homeless shelters, the Navajo and Lakota nations, the US Gulf Coast, and Kingston, Jamaica.
Dr. Myers-Lipton is the recipient of the Manuel Vega Latino Empowerment Award, San José/Silicon Valley NAACP Social Justice Award, the Elbert Reed Award from the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Association of Santa Clara County, the Changer Maker Award from the Silicon Valley Council of Non-Profits, the Teaching Effectiveness Award from the SJSU College of Social Sciences, and the SJSU Distinguished Service Award.
Dr. Myers-Lipton serves as an Advisory Board Member of the SJSU Human Rights Institute. In addition, Dr. Myers-Lipton, along with Bobby Hackett from the Bonner Foundation, are leading an effort to mainstream social action in higher education.
He lives with his wife, Diane, in San José. In addition, Scott and Diane are the proprietors of the Sequoia Retreat Center, an event center dedicated to individual and social transformation.