She is currently the David and Mary Winton Green Professor in Political Science and the College at the University of Chicago, and is the former Director of the Center for the Study of Race (2002–05).
[2] Cohen frequently writes and speaks about gender, sexuality, class, ethnicity, and their interrelatedness and connection to power.
This approach puts her in a class of leftist intellectuals who work to have social and public policy influence on the lives of marginalized groups in a positive way.
[7] She was also on the board of Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press as well as the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies (CLAGS) at CUNY.
[12] Cohen has also been member of the Black Radical Congress, African American Women in Defense of Ourselves,[13] and the United Coalition Against Racism.
She urges that we must recognize the intersections of oppression and understand how multiple identities work to limit the privilege granted to those who conform to heteronormativity.
Twenty Years Later”, Cohen reflected on her article “Punks, Bulldaggers, and Welfare Queens” saying that it was shaped primarily by three factors: the HIV/AIDS crisis, neoliberal policies and ideologies implemented by Reagan and Clinton that harmed the poor, and hope, which stands in contrast to the first two (she is referring to the emergence of Black feminist and Black gay and lesbians communities between the 70s-90s).
The article is primarily focused on hope, as Cohen is afraid of the erasure that happens with re-writing history, especially around Black and gay communities framed as only as response to HIV/AIDS.