Past <i>Brown</i> Lectures

2014

A Long Shadow: The American Pursuit of Political Justice and Education Equality

James D. Anderson, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

View the Entire Lecture — Webcast
Download the Slides (PDF)
2014 Brown Twitter Recap
2014 Brown Lecture Photos
2014 Brown Lecture Page

2013

A New Civil Rights Agenda for American Education: Creating Opportunity in a Stratified Multiracial Nation

Gary Orfield, UCLA

On Thursday, October 24, 2013, an audience of nearly 700 viewers in person and over 430 online watched as Professor Gary Orfield (University of California, Los Angeles) presented A New Civil Rights Agenda for American Education: Creating Opportunity in a Stratified Multiracial Nation. The Brown Lecture is now in its tenth year, inaugurated in 2004 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education decision.

Orfield’s lecture took heated aim at the state of civil rights in the U.S., with an emphasis on outdated approaches to the changing dynamics of segregation and the lack of awareness of racial inequality.

View the Entire Lecture — Webcast
Read the Full Text — Educational Researcher, August/September 2014
2013 Photo Gallery
2013 Twitter Conversation (Storify)
2013 Press Coverage
2013 Brown Lecture Page

2012
Original Intent: Black Educators in an Elusive Quest for Justice

Vanessa Siddle Walker, Emory University

On October 26th, Vanessa Siddle Walker, the Samuel Dobbs Professor of Educational Studies at Emory University, presented the 2012 AERA Annual Brown Lecture in Education Research in Washington, D.C. “Original Intent: Black Educators in an Elusive Quest for Justice” was delivered to a packed house. Siddle Walker’s ground-breaking lecture challenged the historically accepted view of Black educators in the era of Brown v. Board of Education and earlier. Many people continue to view those educators as less instrumental in the Supreme Court decision than the more often celebrated parents and attorneys.

View the Entire Lecture — Webcast
Read the Full Text — Educational Researcher, May 2013
Conversation With Vanessa Siddle Walker

2011
Through a Glass Darkly: The Persistence of Race in Education Research

Gloria J. Ladson-Billings, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Ladson-Billings entitled her address "Through a Glass Darkly: The Persistence of Race in Education Research." She raised fundamental issues about the connections between research and data and issues of social inequality and education in society. Ladson-Billings is the Kellner Family Chair in Urban Education and Professor of Curriculum and Instruction and Educational Policy Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and former AERA President (2005-2006).

View the Entire Lecture — Webcast
Read the Full Text — Educational Researcher, May 2012
Conversation With Gloria J. Ladson-Billings
Event Photos
2011 Brown Lecture Announcement

2010
Educating Language Minority Students and Affirming Their Equal Rights: Research and Practical Perspectives

Kenji Hakuta

Kenji Hakuta, Lee L. Jacks Professor at Stanford University School of Education, focused his lecture on the 1974 U.S. Supreme Court decision Lau v. Nichols, which involved equal educational opportunities for nearly 1,800 Chinese students in the San Francisco Unified School District. Ever since that decision, the nation’s education system has struggled with how to address the question of equal educational opportunity for English language learners. Debates in Congress, states, and local districts, as well as in the courts, have been juxtaposed with various reform efforts focused on teachers, standards, instruction, assessment, accountability, and values.

View the Entire Lecture — Webcast
Read the Full Text — Educational Researcher, May 2011
Conversation With Kenji Hakuta
2010 Brown Lecture News Release

2009
Mobilizing Culture, Language, and Educational Practices: Fulfilling the Promises of Mendez and Brown

Luis C. Moll

Luis C. Moll, Professor in the Department of Language, Reading and Culture at the University of Arizona College of Education, recounts the circumstances of the 1946 California court case Mendez v. Westminster, which led to desegregation of California’s public schools and presaged Brown v. Board of Education. Sylvia Mendez, whose family undertook a legal challenge to secure her entrance into the Westminster school, was a special guest of AERA for the Lecture.

View the Entire Lecture — Webcast
Read the Full Text — Educational Researcher, August/September 2010
2009 Brown Lecture News Release

2008

The Brown Legacy and the O’Connor Challenge: Transforming Schools in the Images of Children’s Potential

Stephen W. Raudenbush

Stephen W. Raudenbush, Lewis-Sebring Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Sociology and the College at the University of Chicago, looks at the continuing achievement gap between White students and Black students and ways in which persistent inequality can be overcome. Writing the majority opinion in the 2003 U.S. Supreme Court case Grutter v. Bollinger, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor expressed the hope that in 25 years affirmative action would no longer be needed. Raudenbush looks ahead to that date—2028—and expresses a conviction that, despite a multiplicity of causes of inequality, school improvement can by itself play a powerful role in overcoming educational consequences of racial inequality. The task of engaging children in ambitious intellectual work, however, begins with innovative ways of thinking about best school practice and use of the best available education research to make connections between developmental science, instructional practice, and school organization.

View the Entire Lecture — Webcast
Read the Full Text — Educational Researcher, April 2009
2008 Brown Lecture News Release

2007

Lessons Learned and Opportunities Ignored Since Brown v. Board of Education: Youth Development and the Myth of a Colorblind Society

Margaret Beale Spencer

Margaret Beale Spencer, Board of Overseers Professor of Applied Psychology and Human Development at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education, explores skin color bias in the United States. Drawing upon a wealth of research, Spencer speaks of color bias as a continuing social issue that deserves careful scrutiny as a health hazard. To maintain the myth of a colorblind society, she maintains, appears
counterproductive to the point of being wasteful if it averts the use of strategies needed by youth to cope
with racial stereotypes.

View the Entire Lecture — Webcast
Read the Full Text — Educational Researcher, June 2008
2007 Brown Lecture News Release

2006
The Flat Earth and Education: How America's Commitment to Equity Will Determine Our Future

Linda Darling-Hammond

Linda Darling-Hammond, Charles E. Ducommun Professor of Education at Stanford University, outlines current disparities in educational access; illustrates the relationships between race, educational resources, and student achievement; and proposes reforms needed to equalize opportunities to learn.

View the Entire Lecture — Webcast
Read the Full Text — Educational Researcher, August 2007
2006 Brown Lecture News Release

2005
Contingencies of Identity and Schooling in a Diverse Society: Toward Reducing Inequality of Outcomes

Claude M. Steele
Claude M. Steele presented this special AERA lecture, which focuses on equality and equity in education research. A Stanford University psychologist, Professor Steele has conducted research that has changed how social scientists think about prejudice and stereotypes. On September 1, Professor Steele became director of the prestigious Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, an independent organization dedicated to advancing knowledge about human behavior through research. The center is located in Stanford, California.

View the Entire Lecture — Webcast
2005 Brown Lecture News Release

2004

Education, Excellence and Equity: Toward Equitable Access to Excellence in Education

Edmund W. Gordon
Edmund W. Gordon, director of the Institute for Urban and Minority Education at Teachers College, Columbia University, presented the inaugural Brown Lecture, commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education decision of the U.S. Supreme Court, which took scientific research into account in issuing this landmark ruling.

View the Entire Lecture — Webcast
2004 Brown Lecture News Release

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