[12] In this paper, Washington and Kuziemko use historical Gallup data on racial attitudes and political preferences to empirically examine why Southern whites left the Democratic party in the second half of the 20th century.

This notable political shift has been a central question in Political Economy and has conventionally lead to two competing explanations: (1) Civil Rights caused racially conservative whites to leave the party and (2) economic development in the South made Democratic redistributive policies unattractive.

Washington became the co-chair on the Committee on the Status of Minority Groups in the Economics Profession (CSMGEP) in 2018.

Washington has written and lectured extensively about the difficulties for African Americans in the economics profession.

[13] In October 2020, Washington and her co-chair Gary Hoover, pushed the American Economic Association to implement 5 new programs on diversity including an undergraduate essay prize in honor of Andrew Brimmer, a travel grant for underrepresented minorities, and a seed grant for economics departments to start programs aimed at diversity and inclusion.