2026 AERA ANNUAL BROWN LECTURE IN EDUCATION RESEARCH
Thursday, November 5, 2026
6:00 p.m. ET | Virtual Livestream
Join AERA for the 2026 Annual Brown Lecture in Education Research, featuring Daniel Solórzano, professor of social science and comparative education and Chicana/o and Central American studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, and director of UCLA’s Center for Critical Race Studies in Education.
The lecture will be presented before a small, invited in-person audience and livestreamed for the public.
ABOUT THE LECTURE
Admitted but Not Equal: What George McLaurin’s Story Tells Us About Race, Racism, and Education in 1948 and Today
What does it mean to be admitted to a university but still denied the opportunity to attend as an equal?
In the 2026 Brown Lecture, Daniel G. Solórzano examines that question through the story of George W. McLaurin, an educator who, at 54 years old, became the first Black student admitted to the University of Oklahoma in 1948. Although McLaurin was permitted to enroll in its doctoral program in educational administration, the university segregated him from his white classmates—in the classroom, library, cafeteria, and other spaces across campus.
Drawing on archival research and the scholarship of pioneering legal scholar Derrick Bell, Solórzano explores McLaurin’s challenge to the university’s treatment of him, culminating in the landmark 1950 Supreme Court case McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents. He recovers McLaurin’s fuller story as an educator, husband, and father and considers what his experience—and the decision that helped lay the groundwork for Brown v. Board of Education—reveals about the difference between gaining access to an institution and attending as an equal.
At a time when questions about racial inequality and equal opportunity remain deeply contested, the lecture assesses how patterns of exclusion can persist within educational institutions even after formal legal barriers have been removed—and what McLaurin’s legacy asks of researchers, educators, and policymakers today.
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ABOUT THE SPEAKER
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Daniel Solórzano is Professor of Social Science and Comparative Education and Chicana/o and Central American Studies and the Director of the Center for Critical Race Studies in Education at the University of California, Los Angeles. Dr. Solórzano is known for his work in critical race theory in education, racial microaggressions, racial microaffirmations, and critical race spatial analysis. He has authored more than 100 research articles, book chapters, and books on issues related to educational access and equity and underrepresented student populations.
He is co-author of Racial Microaggressions: Using Critical Race Theory to Respond to Everyday Racism (Teachers College Press) and co-editor of The Chicana/o Education Pipeline: History, Institutional Critique, and Resistance (UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center Press). Dr. Solórzano was elected an AERA Fellow in 2014 and is a past member of AERA Council (2022–2025). He is recipient of AERA’s Social Justice in Education Award. He has also received the UCLA Distinguished Teaching Award and the Critical Race Studies in Education Association’s Derrick A. Bell Legacy Award. In 2020, he was elected as a member of the National Academy of Education. |
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ABOUT AERA LEADERSHIP
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Tabbye M. Chavous is executive director of the American Educational Research Association. A nationally recognized scholar and seasoned leader, Chavous brings over 25 years of experience and significant accomplishments in research, teaching, and organizational advancement. Across her career, she has consistently advocated for high-quality, inclusive research, and her equity-oriented leadership is evident in her approaches to building and transforming educational environments. Chavous has dedicated her career to educational equity, advancing strengths-based frameworks for studying the experiences of marginalized communities and working with educational systems to draw on this knowledge in ways that serve all students. |
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AERA 2026-2027 President Jerome Morris is the the E. Desmond Lee Endowed Professor of Urban Education at the University of Missouri–St. Louis. A former middle school teacher and founder of a rites of passage program, Morris’s conceptual frameworks emphasize the need for authentic partnerships with historically marginalized people and low-resource communities and schools.
Morris’s nearly three-decade career includes serving as a tenured professor at the University of Georgia (UGA) and a Fellow at UGA’s Institute for Behavioral Research. He has authored the books Central City’s Joy and Pain: Solidarity, Survival, and Soul in a Birmingham Housing Project (University of Georgia Press) and Troubling the Waters: Fulfilling the Promise of Quality Public Schooling for Black Children (Teachers College Press) and has published in leading research journals such as the American Educational Research Journal, Educational Researcher, Review of Research in Education, and Teachers College Record. Highly engaged with AERA since 1995, Morris was inducted as an AERA Fellow in 2022, elected Division G’s vice-president for 2020–2023, elected to AERA’s Executive Board, and served as Council liaison to AERA’s Journal Publications Committee. |
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ABOUT THE ANNUAL BROWN LECTURE IN EDUCATION RESEARCH
The Annual Brown Lecture in Education Research illuminates the important role of research in advancing understanding of equality and equity in education. The Lectureship was inaugurated in 2004 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision, in which the U.S. Supreme Court took scientific research into account. Each year a distinguished scholar notable for producing significant research related to equality in education is invited to give this public lecture in Washington, D.C.
ABOUT AERA
The American Educational Research Association (AERA) is the largest national interdisciplinary research association devoted to the scientific study of education and learning. Founded in 1916, AERA advances knowledge about education, encourages scholarly inquiry related to education, and promotes the use of research to improve education and serve the public good. With members from 96 countries, AERA is committed to expanding its connections to the global research community, and is actively involved in advancing the field of education research worldwide.
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2026 BROWN LECTURE SELECTION COMMITTEE
Jerome Morris • Maisha T. Winn • Tabbye Chavous • Denise M. Taliaferro Baszile • Ruth María López • Rand Quinn • George L. Wimberly
PREVIOUS LECTURERS
Learn more about past lectures
2025 - James A. Banks, University of Washington
2024 - Elise Boddie, University of Michigan
2023 - Leslie T. Fenwick, Howard University and AACTE
2022 - John Diamond, Brown University
2021 - Lori Patton Davis, The Ohio State University
2020 - William F. Tate IV, University of South Carolina
2019 - Prudence L. Carter, University of California, Berkley
2018 - H. Richard Milner IV, Vanderbilt University
2017 - Alfredo J. Artiles, Arizona State University
2016 - Marta Tienda, Princeton University
2015 - Teresa L. McCarty, University of California, Los Angeles
2014 - James D. Anderson, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
2013 - Gary Orfield, University of California, Los Angeles
2012 - Vanessa Siddle Walker, Emory University
2011 - Gloria J. Ladson-Billings, University of Wisconsin, Madison
2010 - Kenji Hakuta, Stanford University
2009 - Luis C. Moll, University of Arizona
2008 - Stephen W. Raudenbush, University of Chicago
2007 - Margaret Beale Spencer, University of Chicago
2006 - Linda Darling-Hammond, Stanford University
2005 - Claude M. Steele, Stanford University
2004 - Edmund W. Gordon, Teachers College, Columbia University
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