The Injustice of Fairness: Algorithmic Reparation and the Case for Redress - Softcover

Davis, Jenny L.; Williams, Apryl A.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0520418298 ISBN 13: 9780520418295

Publisher: University of California Press, 2026

Synopsis

The Injustice of Fairness shifts the foundation of algorithmic ethics, displacing “fairness” with repair and redress. A substantial and growing field, algorithmic ethics aims to mitigate harms and realize social good. The fairness paradigm dominates this field across AI, machine learning, and other data-driven domains. So far, efforts toward fairness have been unsuccessful, with algorithmic harms that propagate and persist. Jenny L. Davis and Apryl A. Williams explain why algorithmic fairness perpetually fails and present “algorithmic reparation” in its place.
 
The stakes are high because algorithms are everywhere―from law to love, healthcare to housing, education to media, and beyond. More than lines of code or mathematical operations, algorithms carry history, configure the present, and are actively shaping the future. Set against a backdrop of societal instability and technological transformation, The Injustice of Fairness offers a careful critique, original framework, and blueprint for social change with algorithms as entry points and levers.

About this title

About the Author

Jenny L. Davis is Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Chair and Professor of Sociology at Vanderbilt University and Honorary Professor of Sociology at the Australian National University. Blending sociology with tech studies, she explores the ways design shapes society and society shapes design. Her previous book, How Artifacts Afford, decodes how politics and power are embedded in everyday technologies.

Apryl A. Williams is Associate Professor of Digital Studies and Communication at the University of Michigan and Faculty Associate at Harvard University's Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society. Her previous book, Not My Type, offers a powerful critique of how technology replicates and amplifies real-world social inequities in digital culture.

From the Back Cover

"Brilliant and inspiring, this book moves us from the broken paradigm of algorithmic fairness to algorithms for reparative movements. From rethinking employment antidiscrimination law to concrete analyses of the obstacles to algorithmic reparation, this book offers us ways to achieve lasting social change. The Injustice of Fairness provides a way to get over AI doom and build the future we want."―Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, Canada 150 Research Chair and Director of the Digital Democracies Institute, Simon Fraser University

"Radical but reasonable, this imaginative and persuasive book pops the ‘algorithmic fairness’ bubble. It offers not only a searing critique of current algorithmic systems but also an exciting, expansive vision for a world where these systems no longer harm, repairing how we love, work, and keep each other safe."― Aymar Jèan Escoffery, author of Reparative Media: Cultivating Stories and Platforms to Heal Our Culture

"Moving us through the theoretical into the urgent practice of repair, The Injustice of Fairness points scholars and practitioners toward remaking and reinventing technologies as pathways to liberation. A truly compelling and critical look at how we shape the future of algorithmic justice."―Catherine Knight Steele, author of Digital Black Feminism

Edition details

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Publication date: 2026
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0520418298
• ISBN 13: 9780520418295
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 173