BOSTON, MA—This month, NCSD joined Brown's Promise at Boston’s historic Museum of African American History for a screening of Anurima Bhargava's new mini-doc Teaching America, which follows the student-led fight for AP African American Studies in Arkansas. GeDá Jones Herbert (Chief Legal Counsel at Brown's Promise) led a dynamic post-screening dialogue. Next, we heard Drs. Noelle Trent, Danielle Allen, and Raul Fernandez discuss the interconnections between honest history, educational justice, and integration with Cara Berg Powers (MA State Director at Brown's Promise).

LEGAL & POLICY UPDATES

LOS ANGELES DESEGREGATION POLICY UNDER ATTACK

Via The New York Times: "A decades-old policy meant to combat the harms of school segregation in Los Angeles was challenged in federal court on Tuesday by a conservative group that says the policy discriminates against white students. The policy dates back to the 1970s, when the Los Angeles school district, the nation’s second-largest, was under a court order to desegregate and improve conditions for students of color. The policy offers smaller class sizes and other benefits to students at schools whose enrollment is predominantly Hispanic, Black or Asian — a majority of the district’s schools. The plaintiffs argue that students at schools with more white students receive 'inferior treatment and calculated disadvantages,' according to the lawsuit, which was filed Tuesday by the 1776 Project Foundation, a group that opposes racial preferences in education." See White Students Hurt by L.A. Desegregation Policy, Lawsuit Says Schools with more white children miss out on smaller class sizes and other benefits, the lawsuit says. (Jan. 20)

View the complaint here.

Related articles and statements:

• Lawsuit alleging discrimination against white LAUSD students has potential to move forward (EdSource, Jan. 23)
• Conservative Group’s Lawsuit Claims L.A. Schools Policy Hurts White Students (Education Week, Jan. 21)

JUDGE DENIES DISMISSAL OF LOUISIANA DESEGREGATION ORDER

Via NOLA.com: "A federal judge has rejected a bid by the St. John the Baptist Parish School Board to lift longstanding desegregation orders, the latest instance of courts resisting efforts to summarily dismiss cases that Louisiana and Trump Administration officials say should have ended long ago. U.S. District Court Judge Jay Zainey acknowledged in his Jan. 22 ruling that school desegregation orders never were intended to be permanent, and said it is a 'legitimate question' whether the School Board should remain under judicial oversight due to a lawsuit dating to the 1960s. But he also said the board 'must do more than simply argue' that the case is moot because the school system long ago stopped requiring Black and White students to attend separate schools. The 'Court is not persuaded that the Board’s reliance on the doctrine of mootness is the correct approach,' wrote Zainey, who was nominated to the Eastern District of Louisiana court by former President George W. Bush." See This Louisiana school board wants to end its desegregation orders. A judge said no. (Jan. 29)

SECOND GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN (MOSTLY) AVERTED; CURRENT FUNDING LEVELS FOR MAGNET SCHOOLS REMAINS INTACT

Via the U.S. Senate (Jan. 30): "Today, in a 71-29 vote, the Senate passed five more fiscal year 2026 appropriations bills: the Defense; Financial Services and General Government; Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies [(Labor-HHS-Education)]; National Security, Department of State, and Related Programs; and Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies appropriations bills. The amended package strips the Homeland Security bill out of the six-bill package sent over by the House last week and starts a two-week clock to renegotiate the bill." The bill was passed by the U.S. House on February 3, and signed by President Trump shortly thereafter.

The bipartisan Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations bill that was part of the recently-passed FY26 spending package largely maintains current funding for education programs​, including $139 million for the Magnet Schools Assistance Program (MSAP). The Charter School Program (CSP) was funded at $500 million, reflecting a $60 million increase. Funding for the Office for Civil Rights was also left intact.

Education Week notes that: "The legislation wouldn’t entirely halt the Trump administration’s education policy actions, though. The bill and its accompanying report express a litany of concerns that in-progress efforts to shift program responsibilities to other agencies could hurt students and waste taxpayer dollars. But they don’t order the department to cease those efforts." (See, e.g., pages 83-84.)

The continuing resolution that ended the government shutdown in November was set to expire on January 30, requiring Congress to finalize all appropriations bills (12 total), or agree on another continuing resolution. Six FY26 funding bills were already passed: Commerce-Justice-Science; Energy-Water; Interior-Environment; Agriculture; Military Construction-VA; and Legislative Branch.

Related articles:

• Senate passes massive government funding package, sending it to House (The Hill, Jan. 30) - "The Senate voted overwhelmingly Friday to pass a major funding package consisting of five regular appropriations bills and a two-week stopgap measure for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) but the legislation won’t become law before parts of the government shut down at midnight."
• Rebuking Trump, Congress Moves to Maintain Most Federal Education Funding (Education Week, Jan. 20) - "Federal lawmakers from both parties are moving toward approving a new spending plan that maintains the U.S. Department of Education and rejects the Trump administration’s proposal to slash billions of dollars in education investments. Even so, Congress appears to be leaving the door open for the Trump administration to continue some of the unilateral funding and agency staffing maneuvers it implemented in the last year."

UPDATES RE: ISSUES TO WATCH

The responses to the Department of Education's proposed priority related to "patriotic education" are now available for review on regulations.gov. The Department received 5,068 comments on this proposed priority, including a letter penned by EdTrust, which NCSD joined along with several other members.

AS REPORTED BY EDCOUNSEL

EdCounsel issued e-updates on Jan. 8, Jan. 13, and Jan. 21.

Here, we've excerpted the updates that are most pertinent to the NCSD community:

• January 13: "[T]he Supreme Court heard arguments in Little v. Hecox and West Virginia v. B.P.J., two cases considering challenges to state laws in Idaho and West Virginia that bar transgender girls and women from participating on female athletic teams. Questioning during the hearing left the impression that the Court seems poised to rule that these state laws do not violate either the Equal Protection Clause or Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, thus permitting states to restrict transgender women’s and girls’ athletic participation. Although that outcome appears likely, it is unclear whether the Court will also decide whether the Equal Protection Clause or Title IX requires all states (or schools) to implement such restrictions."
• "The day after the oral arguments, [OCR] announced Title IX investigations into 18 school districts and institutions of higher education across ten states (including CA, CT, HI, MA, ME, NV, NY, PA, VT, and WA). Each institution maintains policies that permit student athletes to compete in sports based on their gender identity."
• January 9: "[T]he group of states that brought one of the lawsuits challenging the Administration’s efforts to dismantle [ED] filed an amended complaint that folds into their case both factual assertions and legal claims related to the [interagency agreements, or IAAs]. This parallels the amended complaint filed on 11/25/25 in this same consolidated case by the other set of plaintiffs."
• January 6: "[A] federal district court in Washington State issued a preliminary injunction in a lawsuit brought by parent groups and state Head Start Associations challenging a variety of U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) actions regarding the Head Start program. The nationwide injunction prohibits HHS from implementing, for all Head Start programs, both its anti-diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (“DEIA”) policies and its mass layoffs and regional office closures. The injunction will remain in effect for the duration of the lawsuit, although the Administration may seek to appeal. (Note that the Head Start layoffs have already been halted through a separate lawsuit.) The injunction comes after a number of Head Start programs experienced delays in funding and were ordered to remove references in their application to activities that HHS considered to be DEIA, including some services required in the Head Start Act for children with disabilities and dual language learners. (For more details on the Head Start litigation, please find a litigation summary here.)"
• January 5: ED "announced $169 million in new FIPSE grant awards. The new grant, titled 'FIPSE Special Projects,' awarded 72 grants across four 'areas of national need' as determined by the Trump Administration...including $51.8 million to 17 grantees for Promoting Civil Discourse on College and University Campuses....The list of awards to specific grantees for each category can be found here." Also: "EducationCounsel’s 3/28/25 Deep Dive also explains how, under the FY25 CR that mostly extended FY24’s appropriations levels through FY25, the Administration had the flexibility to prioritize spending among some grant programs within an appropriations account like FIPSE’s."

• In December, "some of [ED's] attempted discontinuations of multiyear grants have been declared illegal while other (recently issued) ones are being challenged in court."
• "[A] group of 16 states won a partial summary judgment in their lawsuit challenging the discontinuation of 138 grants under the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA) designed to increase the number of mental health professionals in schools."
• "According to reporting and a subsequent court filing, [ED] informed 19 recipients of Full-Service Community Schools (FSCS) grants that their multiyear grants would not be renewed, shortly before the programs expected to receive their next year of funding. Two federal lawsuits were filed on 12/29/25 to challenge the FSCS discontinuations; one was filed in Illinois by two organizations with FSCS grants and one in Washington, DC by a non-profit organization supported by an FSCS grant and the American Federation of Teachers, whose members work in schools benefiting from FSCS grants."

NCSD MEMBER UPDATES

RECENT RESEARCH

• Legacy of Black educators in Navajo Nation schools (University of Nevada Reno, Jan. 27) - "[A new] article examines the aftermath of the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education and traces what happened to thousands of Black teachers who lost their positions during the transition to desegregated schooling across the South. While the ruling declared segregated public schools unconstitutional, many districts responded by dismissing or demoting Black educators. The study highlights how federal Bureau of Indian Affairs schools on the Navajo Nation became an unexpected site of employment for many of these displaced teachers." Link to Article: Oliver George, Tapaha Khalil, Anthony Johnson, Jr., Nathan Tanner, Terah Venzant Chambers, A Different Brown Story: Black Teacher Recruitment to Navajo Reservation BIA Schools During the Desegregation Era (electronically published in Jan. 2026, forthcoming in Educational Researcher)
• Bruce D. Baker and Ericka S Weathers, Rethinking cause & consequence in U.S. school funding inequality: a future role for quant crit perspectives (electronically published in Jan. 2026, forthcoming in Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences) - "The goal of this review is to synthesize recent, methodologically and conceptually diverse bodies of literature addressing the cause and consequence of racial disparities in school funding and equal educational opportunity in pursuit of enhancing school funding research practices....The studies reviewed herein demonstrate that race-avoidant policies will not sufficiently remedy racial disparities in school funding because of structurally and individually racist causes. Racism caused the disparities throughout the school funding system."
• The Calculus of Difference: A Differential Approach to Pluralism and Integrative Education in India, a presentation by American University Professor Deepa Srikantaiah, Ph.D at the 2026 Joint Mathematics Meetings - "Why Calculus? Calculus helps us understand: How wholes emerge from many small parts, How continuity is formed through integration, How change, friction, and approximation matter. Unity does not erase difference, it integrates it."
• Aaron Kupchik, Bearing the Brunt: The Growth of School Suspension and Resistance to Desegregation (electronically published in Dec. 2025, forthcoming in The Urban Review) - "In this article, I draw on historical archival research in Boston, Massachusetts, to help answer this question. As I demonstrate below, school suspensions were rare through the 1960s in Boston, but they became common in the 1970s as a response to racial desegregation of schools."

NEWS FROM ACROSS OUR COUNTRY

Via MarchOn! - A memorial service honoring [Colvin's] extraordinary life and legacy will be held [Friday Feb. 6 at 11am ET] at The Abyssinian Baptist Church [in NYC], with a livestream available for those who wish to join remotely.

Claudette Colvin honored at memorial service (WSFA, Jan. 24) - "People from all over the country gathered in Birmingham on Saturday to honor the life and legacy of Claudette Colvin, an overlooked pioneer of the Civil Rights Movement whose act of defiance preceded Rosa Parks’ famous protest by nine months. Colvin, who passed away January 13th, refused to surrender her bus seat to a white woman on March 2, 1955, in Montgomery. At just 15 years old, her act of civil disobedience led to her arrest and later made her one of four plaintiffs in a landmark desegregation case that would ultimately declare Alabama’s bus segregation laws unconstitutional....The family has requested that in lieu of flowers, those wishing to honor Colvin make a donation to the Claudette Colvin Foundation."

Related stories: The teen who refused to give up her seat on a segregated bus—before Rosa Parks (National Geographic, Jan. 29); EJI Remembers Civil Rights Pioneer Claudette Colvin (Equal Justice Initiative, Jan. 14)

National -

• Opinion (Nicholas Kristof): How to Bring Back the American Dream (The New York Times, Jan. 28) - "We need some good news now, and here’s some out of left field: An important new study suggests that there’s a highly effective way to overcome one of the most intractable problems in 21st-century America — intergenerational poverty....The new study highlights a powerful way to boost opportunity. It doesn’t involve handing out money, and it appears to pretty much pay for itself. It works by harnessing the greatest influence there is on kids — other kids."
• Gen Z is protesting corruption worldwide. Will they drive lasting change? (Harvard Kennedy School, Jan. 27) - "In a recent journal essay, Harvard Kennedy School Professor Erica Chenoweth and research fellow Matthew Cebul reviewed patterns in Gen-Z-led protest alongside trends in youth protest over time."
• Opinion (Marc Elias): We cannot be nostalgic for the United States (Democracy Docket, Jan. 24) - "Those who are looking in the rearview mirror and expecting the rule of law to crawl back to us are fooling themselves. Those who expect the old norms and institutions to protect us are endangering our democracy."
• Opinion (Tom Purcell): The civil rights pioneer history forgot (Sentinel Colorado, Jan. 19) - "Long before landmark laws were passed and marches filled the streets, [John Wesley] Dobbs’ work helped push the nation toward the civil rights breakthroughs that finally dismantled Jim Crow." (Versions of this article appeared in several news sources.)
• Opinion (Kenji Yoshino and David Glasgow): DEI is a path to meritocracy, not an alternative (Los Angeles Times, Jan. 18) - "In the move to obliterate diversity, equity and inclusion, one word — merit — has stood out as an effective cudgel....As scholars of diversity initiatives, we agree that merit should be a top priority in admissions, hiring and promotions. A major reason our society still needs diversity, equity and inclusion, after all, is to overcome a long history of unfairly assessing people based on criteria other than merit."
• Opinion (Theodore R. Johnson): Citizenship has become fragile. History shows where that leads. (The Washington Post, Jan. 14) - "In practice, citizenship was less of a rights guarantee and more a badge granted by the state, signaling who belonged and who did not. The 14th Amendment established birthright citizenship, the nation’s first forward-looking color-blind provision, but its promise was hollowed out almost immediately by the establishment of race-based second-class citizenship in the Jim Crow era and by the series of restrictive immigration laws that set quotas favoring White Europeans."
• District Consolidation and the Cost of Fragmentation (Watershed Advisors, Jan. 13) - "Consolidation can’t be left to districts to sort out on their own. It’s not something most districts will volunteer for—the political risk is high, the process is complex, and district leaders and school boards would be asked to approve changes that reduce or eliminate their own roles in the name of efficiency. Individual communities aren’t positioned to solve this on their own. This is a collective governance problem—and if consolidation is going to happen, it has to be led at the state level, through legislative and executive action."
• The Future Albert Einstein Believed In (The Atlantic, Jan. 2) - "The physicist fought for the promise of a diverse, meritocratic America. We need his optimism today."

California -

• Blog (Gerd Stieler): Would MLK endorse "Schools of Choice"? (Redwood City Pulse, Jan.19) - "Record funding, new tax measures, new leaders, and still using the old structures that keep children apart."
• Thousands of immigrant students flee LA Unified Schoools after 'chilling effect' of ICE raid (Originally published in The 74 on Nov. 21, 2025, this article appeared in several outlets in January.) - "This school year, the Los Angeles school district has lost more than 13,000 immigrant students, mostly Hispanic, school officials said, with students fleeing in the months since U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement stepped up activity in Los Angeles in March."
• It pays to have friends in high places – more than we thought, according to research. (NBC Bay Area, Dec. 24) - "Two Bay Area mentorship programs are putting the shocking data results on the strongest predictor of economic mobility to the test."

Colorado -

• School enrollment expert Brian Eschbacher on the root causes of enrollment declines (school choice is not the culprit) (The Boardhawk Podcast, Jan. 29) - "Colorado public schools are experiencing sustained enrollment declines (Denver less than many other districts), and that’s reshaping everything — school funding, staffing, program offerings, district politics, and debates over school choice. This is more than a demographic story; it’s a governance and values story. Today we are joined by Brian Eschacher to unpack enrollment trends, how school choice fits into the picture, and what districts and policy makers should be paying attention to next."

Florida -

• Florida's Black lawmakers denounce attorney general's opinion as damaging political stunt (ABC News, Jan. 22) - "Florida's Republican attorney general is questioning the constitutionality of state laws supporting minority contracting and diverse appointments."

Georgia -

• A civil rights museum in Atlanta now includes exhibits from the Reconstruction era (NPR, Jan. 19) - "Chief program officer Kama Pierce is in charge of the new exhibit 'Broken Promises: The Legacy Of The Reconstruction Era.' She says while laws changed after slavery, the culture did not, and within a few years, Jim Crow segregation laws took hold. The exhibit shows images of racial violence, maps of lynchings and massacres of Wilmington, Atlanta and Tulsa." Learn more about the exhibit.

Illinois -

• Historic Highlights: Sarah Raymond led fight to desegregate Bloomington schools (Shaw Local, Jan. 23) - "Sometimes one individual can make a difference. In the case of Sarah Raymond Fitzwilliam, she took on segregation in the schools of one of Illinois’ most important cities – and won."

Kansas -

• Wichita remembers Josephine "Jo" Brown, trailblazing school board member and community leader (KAKE News, Jan. 2) - "Brown served during a pivotal time in the early 1970s as Wichita Public Schools faced pressure to desegregate and address inequities in education. Her daughter, Sheila Kinnard, said her mother spent her life advocating for fairness, community involvement and change."

Louisiana -

• The Lie That Elite Colleges, and a Nation, Wanted to Believe (The New York Times, Jan. 13) - Katie Benner and Erica L. Green's new book, "'Miracle Children' details how a Louisiana school exploited the demand for stories of Black trauma."
• Judge Ends School Desegregation Order at Trump's Request (Edication Week, Jan. 7) - "A federal judge closed a long-running school desegregation case in DeSoto Parish on Monday, less than a week after the U.S. Department of Justice, the Louisiana attorney general, and the DeSoto Parish School Board asked the court to dismiss the case and release the schools from federal oversight."

Massachusetts -

• Wu signals BPS assignment revamp and some activists are asking 'why?' (Dorchester Reporter, Jan. 14) - "Tucked into Mayor Michelle Wu’s Jan. 5 inaugural speech was a pledge to revisit the Boston Public Schools student assignment system. 'We will revisit school assignment to be simpler and more predictable, reduce time students spend on the bus, and reinvest in advanced coursework, arts, and athletics,' she said in her remarks, given at Symphony Hall after she was sworn in for her second term. It was a reference that has some activists wondering: ‘Why now?'"
• Falling Enrollment Most Extreme in Wealthy Districts, Study Finds (The 74, Jan. 8) - "Years after COVID-related health fears subsided, public school enrollment in Massachusetts remains significantly lower than in 2019, according to research released earlier this year. The sharp declines — matched by simultaneous moves to private schools and homeschooling — were driven overwhelmingly by a flight from the most affluent school districts, which lost many more students than all of the state’s low- and middle-income communities combined."

Nebraska -

• Once a safe place for Black Travelers during Jim Crow, North Omaha 'castle' earns national recognition (1011 NOW, Jan. 17) - "The 116-year-old home on the corner of Burdette Street and Florence Boulevard has decades’ worth of stories to share. It historically has been referred to as the Burkenroad home, Broadview Hotel and Trimble Castle — names reflecting the evolution of the neighborhood where it sits. From 1939 to 1966, it was listed as a Green Book site for African American travelers. In December, a monthslong local effort to add the home to the National Register of Historic Places cleared the final hurdle and officially joined the federal list of historically significant properties deemed worthy of preservation."

New Hampshire -

• Controversy in Concord: New Hampshire Lawmaker Defends "Segregated Schools" Comment (Granite State Report, Jan. 15) - "A political firestorm erupted in New Hampshire this week after leaked private messages from the chair of the House Education Policy and Administration Committee appeared to endorse the idea of 'segregated schools.' Republican Representative Kristin Noble of Bedford publicly responded to the backlash by clarifying that she was referring to political — not racial — separation. The episode has sparked intense debate over education policy, equity, and the direction of public schooling in the Granite State." Related articles: Following leaked messages, Republican House education chair says publicly she favors politically segregated schools (Concord Monitor, Jan. 15); Nashua NAACP calls Rep. Kristin Noble's comments on segregated schools 'deeply concerning' (Nashua Ink Link, Jan. 17); Superintendent in Kristin Noble's town criticizes 'segregated schools' comments (Concord Monitor, Jan. 20)

New Jersey -

• Will NJ legislators force small school districts to consolidate? (northjersey.com, Jan. 27) - "[Senate Majority Leader Teresa] Ruiz and Sen. Vin Gopal, D-Monmouth, current chair of the Senate committee, are also watching developments in a school segregation lawsuit brought in 2018 by the advocacy group Latino Action Network and the NAACP."

New York -

• Crossing Lines: What School Integration Taught Me (YCteen Magazine, Jan. 15) - "The more I learned about de facto segregation — segregation that still exists as the result of neighborhood housing powers and social and economic forces — the more I understood the importance of integrated schools. School is one of the only times in one’s life where people are forced to interact with others who are different from them, allowing everyone to learn from and about people from other cultures. And the more I spoke up about this, the more confident I grew in my own voice, even leading parts of the meetings I initially attended."
• NYC schools chief Kamar Samuels signals integration, culturally responsive education as priorities (Chalkbeat, Jan. 5) - "In a letter to Education Department staff on Monday, New York City schools Chancellor Kamar Samuels began sketching out some of his priorities, including school integration and lessons that reflect the system’s diversity. 'I believe that every student — starting in early childhood and continuing through graduation — deserves a school that is academically rigorous, safe, and truly integrated,' Samuels wrote in the letter obtained by Chalkbeat."

Ohio -

• Relay Cleveland explores school desegregation, 50 years after court order (Ideastream Public Media, Jan. 8) - "[An] exhibition and documentary are part of a public history campaign called Relay Cleveland, an exploration of school desegregation in Cleveland. The name comes from the practice Gilbert-Cage describes of Black children attending school on a relay schedule, where they received only half a day of school, instead of a full day."

South Carolina -

• SC Rep. Clyburn's new book: history, a cautionary tale and a peaceful call to arms (The State, Jan. 4) - "[An encounter with visitors to the U.S. Capitol] made up his mind: His next book would be about those eight South Carolina African American men who served in Congress in the post-Civil War era and how hardball politics and violence in the state and Washington eventually relegated Blacks to second class citizenship and Jim Crow apartheid during much of the previous century."

Texas -

• Garland ISD could be released from desegregation order. What does that mean? (The Dallas Morning News, Jan. 19) - "Ryan Raybould, the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Texas, filed a motion last month seeking to have Garland ISD’s decades-old desegregation order lifted. In the motion, Raybould called the order outdated and asked the judge to rule that the district had eliminated segregation from its schools....Over the past 30 years, school districts have generally become more racially segregated after being released from desegregation orders, research suggests. But researchers say not every district re-segregates once court oversight ends." Related article: Garland ISD could be released from 50-plus-year-old desegregation order (WFAA, Jan. 9)

Utah -

• State coordinator shares history of Utah's interracial marriage ban (KUTV, Jan. 30) - "[Wendy Rex] Atzet created a blog where readers can explore the history of Utah’s own interracial marriage ban."

Virginia -

• Virginia's 1924 racial segregation law targeted Native Americans for decades (VPM.org, Jan. 15) - "Members of other — mostly western — tribes, she added, 'can introduce themselves fluently in their language, but that is not an ability that I have.' That's because the language spoken by Virginia's tribes has been lost. One reason the language and other cultural touchstones have been lost is due to a unique impact of Jim Crow. Virginia's segregation laws not only affected African American communities; they also directly targeted Native Americans."

Washington -

• Wally Webster II named Lynnwood Times Person of the Year for 2025 (Lynnwood Times, Jan. 5) - "As soon as Webster graduated high school he moved to Pasco, Washington, to live with an uncle who he had never met. He soon found that in Pasco, it was just as segregated as Alabama, with approximately 95% of its Black population living on the east side. Seeing this, Webster created the first chapter of the Congress Of Racial Equality (CORE) when he was just a teen."

Wisconsin -

• 50 years after court order on desegregation in MPS, what's changed? (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Jan. 14) - "On Jan. 19, 1976, federal Judge John Reynolds ordered Milwaukee Public Schools to desegregate, in response to a lawsuit filed by lawyer and state Rep. Lloyd Barbee....Barbee, who died in 2002, was disappointed the mandate didn’t achieve lasting integration, recalled his daughter, Daphne Barbee-Wooten, a civil rights lawyer who edited a book of her father’s writings. Even so, she said, Barbee always held onto hope that his vision of an integrated school system in Milwaukee would one day be realized." Related story: Timeline: Key moments in Milwaukee schools desegregation (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Jan. 14)

CROSS-MOVEMENT RESOURCES

OPPORTUNITIES TO CONSIDER

Call for papers! Bank Street is accepting submissions for Issue #57 of the Occasional Paper Series, which will explore the relationship between education and democracy across contexts and how it might be re-envisioned for the future. Deadline: June 1.

Call for Proposals: “Disrupting the Status Quo: Putting Sociologists to Work for a More Equitable Society” 2026 American Sociological Association (ASA) Annual Meeting - Calls for papers/extended abstracts, courses, preconferences, the Teaching and Learning Symposium, the Sociology in Practice Settings Symposium, and workshops. Learn more here. Submissions Due: February 25, 2026.

Smithsonian American Art Museum's "Teaching the Humanities Through Art" Summer Institute for Teachers - "Commemorate the 250th anniversary of the United States in the nation’s capital with an exciting exploration of America’s art, history, culture, and identity. Spend four days at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC, refreshing your teaching practice with a community of educators from across the country." Applications Due: March 23, 2026.

MARCH 23

New York, NY

(virtual options)

Third Annual Education Law Symposium: Who Owns the Classroom? Religion, Rights, and the Future of Public Education

Fordham Law's Suspension Representation Project

Panel 1 will focus "on the Supreme Court's decision in Mahmoud v. Taylor and its implications for who controls classroom content, exploring the impact of curriculum restrictions, opt-out, and the role of parental rights in shaping the civic mission of public education," and Panel 2 will focus "on the structural impact of Supreme Court cases including Oklahoma Charter Schools v. Drummond and Carson v. Makin, exploring how these cases shift—or, have the potential to shift—the public education landscape, and what other factors may also play a role, such as state action or inaction."

MAY 29

New York, NY

2026 Equity Now Conference: A Call to Action—Reframing Equity Through Refining Culturally Responsive Systems

NYU Metro Center

"This year’s conference focuses on developing new ways of advancing equity to be more responsive to the children, families, and communities who exist furthest on the margins. This convening of education stakeholders will showcase practical tools, research-backed strategies, and policies for creating sustainable, equity-focused spaces." Abolitionist teaching pioneer Dr. Bettina L. Love will serve as the keynote speaker.