August 2013

On October 24, noted civil rights and education policy expert Gary Orfield, co-director of the Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), will explore the unfulfilled promises of civil rights reforms in the nation’s education system and the steps necessary for creating opportunity in contemporary America at AERA’s 2013 Brown Lecture in Education Research.

The public lecture, titled “A New Civil Rights Agenda for American Education: Creating Opportunity in a Stratified and Multiracial Nation,” will take place on October 24 at 6:30 p.m., at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center in Washington, D.C.

The lecture is open to the public, and will be live-streamed on the AERA website.

Orfield’s social science expertise is in civil rights, education policy, urban policy, and minority opportunity. His research focus has been the impact of policy decisions on equal opportunity for success in American society. Prior to UCLA, he was co-founder and director of the Harvard Civil Rights Project.

In his lecture, Orfield will examine why, 60 years after Brown v. Board of Education, the country is moving backward on the goals of the civil rights movement; how reforms often have been misunderstood and rejected, even within the academic community; and how civil rights arguments can be restated in contemporary multiracial terms.

The Brown Lecture—now in its 10th year—was inaugurated by AERA in 2004 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education decision, in which the U.S. Supreme Court first took scientific research into account in issuing its landmark ruling. The lecture serves as an annual reminder of the role that social scientific research plays in the advancement of equality and equity in education and American society.

This year’s Brown Lecture Selection Committee included 2013 AERA President William G. Tierney, University of Southern California; 2014 AERA President Barbara Schneider, Michigan State University; Executive Director Felice J. Levine; Director of Social Justice George L. Wimberly; Social Justice Action Committee (SJAC) Chair Richard P. Duran, University of California, Santa Barbara; and two additional SJAC members, April Taylor, California State University, Northridge, and Shaun Harper, University of Pennsylvania. Duran chaired the selection committee.