Lori Patton Davis to Challenge Narratives Surrounding Brown v. Board of Education in 18th Annual Brown Lecture—Register Now


September 2021

In her Brown Lecture talk on October 21, Lori Patton Davis, professor of higher education and student affairs at Ohio State University, will challenge prevailing narratives surrounding Brown and introduce perspectives that might help account for our lack of progress—perspectives that typically are overlooked or erased in wider Brown discourses. Her analysis will contribute a robust understanding of Brown and its historical and contemporary meanings in the sociopolitical contexts of racism and White supremacy.

“We are thrilled to have Dr. Patton Davis as our Brown Lecture speaker this year,” said AERA Executive Director Felice J. Levine. “She is an incredibly insightful thinker and rigorous researcher whose talk promises to be highly engaging and thought provoking.”

Patton Davis is an influential scholar known for her cross-cutting scholarship on African Americans in higher education, critical race theory, diversity initiatives on college campuses, Black girls and women in educational and social contexts, and college student development.

National Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman’s poem “The Hill We Climb”—among the most powerful moments of the 2021 Presidential Inauguration—inspired the central inquiry of this year’s Brown Lecture: Why are we still climbing the hill of educational equity 67 years after the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark Brown decision?

During her lecture, Patton Davis will consider several pressing questions: How can study of the circumstances that have intensified the COVID-19 pandemic fuel collective understanding of racial inequities and intersectional injustices in education? How might a critical race lens guide educators, policymakers, and researchers toward a more progressive realization of the promises of Brown? What would it take for education researchers, the majority of whom are situated in postsecondary settings, to engage in activism modeled after the work of communities still fighting for the racial and educational equity envisioned in Brown?

The Brown Lecture will take place virtually on Thursday, October 21, 2021, from 6:00 to 7:30 p.m. ET. Patton Davis’s talk will be immediately followed by a moderated discussion forum with an opportunity for audience Q&A. The event is open to the public and there is no cost to register.

A highly respected and accomplished researcher, Patton Davis is the co-author and co-editor of several important books on Black culture centers, Black women and girls, and college student development, and the author of numerous peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters, and other academic publications appearing in highly regarded venues such as the Review of Educational Research, the Journal of Higher EducationUrban Education, and the International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education