Strategic Communications and Marketing News Bureau

Education historian James D. Anderson to deliver Brown lecture in Washington, D.C.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – James D. Anderson, an expert on desegregation and American education history and faculty member at the University of Illinois, will deliver the 11th annual Brown Lecture in Education Research.

The Oct. 23 lecture in Washington, D.C., is sponsored by the American Educational Research Association. AERA founded the annual lecture series in 2004 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education decision and the U.S. Supreme Court’s consideration of scientific research in making the landmark ruling.

Each year, AERA invites a distinguished scholar who is notable for producing significant research related to equality in education to give a public lecture in Washington, D.C.

Anderson’s lecture, “A Long Shadow: The American Pursuit of Political Justice and Education Equality,” will explore how the constitutional framing of the equality of political power in the Reconstruction era casts a long shadow over American social justice today and continues to shape the pursuit of all forms of equality, including immigration and voter identification laws.

Anderson is the Edward William and Jane Marr Gutsgell Professor of Education and head of the department of education policy, organization and leadership in the College of Education at Illinois.

His scholarship focuses broadly on the history of U.S. education, with specializations in the history of African-American education in the South, desegregation in higher education and public schools and African-American school achievement in the 20th century. Anderson also serves as senior editor of the journal History of Education Quarterly.

He has served as an expert witness in a series of federal desegregation and affirmative action cases, and was an adviser for and participant in the PBS documentaries “School: The Story of American Public Education” and “The Rise and Fall of Jim Crow.”

Anderson will speak at 6 p.m. EDT in the amphitheater of the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center, 1300 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW. A reception will follow.

To attend the lecture, RSVP online, by email or call 202-238-3234. Photo ID is required to enter the building.

The lecture also will be live-streamed on the Internet. To register to watch online, visit www.aera.net/WatchBrownLive.

To reach James D. Anderson, call 217-333-7404; email janders@illinois.edu

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