April 2024
To a packed ballroom, AERA 2023–2024 President Tyrone Howard gave his presidential address, “Examining Our Past to Imagine a Better Future: Recognition and Redress of Racial Injustice in Education,” on Saturday, April 13, at the 2024 Annual Meeting in Philadelphia. His talk provided a stimulating overview of how academia can and should be playing a pivotal role in disrupting racial injustice and constructing new educational possibilities.
Howard began his talk with an anecdote about growing up in the predominantly Black working-class city of Compton, which, having been affected by the crack cocaine epidemic, forced its community to adjust to a life with inferior public schools and public services, overaggressive policing, and a lack of investment in infrastructure and resources.
“Even before I knew what a PhD was, or what a theoretical framework was, or could spell, let alone say, ‘epistemology,’ I had a burning research question that guided my daily living and observations: Why do darker people suffer the most?” said Howard.
This question was touched on throughout the lecture, in which Howard addressed how education research must grapple with racial injustice in its work, policy, and practice. He approached this goal by first reminding the audience of the foundations of racism and the role the field has played and continues to play in reifying racism in the U.S.—namely, the impact scientific racism has had on misinforming the general public about racial categories and hierarchies.
“We cannot attain our freedom dreams, and create realities of hope, prosperity, and joy, until we begin to address the ugly stain that has been the legacy of institutionalized racism,” said Howard. “Talking, studying, and dismantling racial injustice requires us to go to the root causes of America’s foundation as a nation, and a recognition of how such ideologies have influenced education.”
“To understand racism means that we have to understand the role of researchers and academics in helping to sustain it,” said Howard.
Howard referred to the work of John Diamond and Louis Gomez, who stated that “organizational routines” play an instrumental role and are foundational mechanisms that general and reproduce White supremacy and anti-Black racism. Therefore, Howard asked the audience to consider the organizational routines of journal editors producing research and institutional roles in universities, schools, colleges, and departments, and how those routines continue to maintain white supremacist mechanisms.
He also examined the contemporary ramifications of racism in today’s educational landscape through contemporary data, examples, and stories. Howard touched specifically on the banning of books, disproportionate suspensions and expulsions of Black and Brown students, the Supreme Court ruling on affirmative action, the proliferation of anti-LGBTQ legislation, the spread of anti–critical race theory laws, and environmental racism.
“For anyone who is studying education, you are studying race,” said Howard. “Schools have often been ground zero for our quest for racial justice.”
“We should be at the forefront of challenging fields outside of education to center the examination of race at the center of their work also.”
Finally, Howard concluded his talk with a call to prioritize racial justice at the center of research, policy, and practice in order to move forward. He argued that scholars need to anchor their efforts in three ways: by listening, imagining, and creating.
“Listening is powerful. Here is where student voices matter,” said Howard. “Let’s listen to the voices, opinions, perspectives, and lived experiences that have always been marginalized.”
“Let’s find ways to imagine that our world can be free of oppression and injustice,” Howard said. “Finally, let us create. Our work at times is mundane, uninspiring, simplistic, reductionistic, and disconnected from real life experience of everyday people. . . . Let’s borrow from art, technology, and music to do more transformative and engaging work.”
Howard’s presidential address will be made publicly available on the AERA website and AERA’s YouTube channel soon.