Freedom! Freedom! Where Are You? A Critical Examination of the Efficacy of Policy for Educational Reform

• In Event: Education Reform and the Reproduction of Inequalities

Abstract

Educational policy and legislation are often unquestionably heralded as the most optimal means to attaining racial equity within education. This study utilizes Afro-pessimism and The Afterlife of Slavery as theoretical frameworks to critically examine the liberatory capacity of educational reform legislation, effectively implicating The State in facilitating the simultaneous preservation of white hegemony and dominance, and Black subjugation. Theorizations illustrate the inherent antiblack design and structure of policy and interrogate the capacity of policy to adequately redress and reform racially observed educational inequities.

Author

• Fatoumata Binta Bah, Muhlenberg College