Revolutionary Scholars: Formerly Incarcerated Students Growing the Prison-to-School Pipeline

• In Event: Exploring Carcerality in the Pre-K–20 Pipeline

Abstract

As an Associate Professor in Chicanx Studies and the faculty mentor for the Revolutionary Scholars Project (RSP)— a resource space at California State University, Northridge (CSUN) for formerly incarcerated students (FIS)— the author will present a practitioner-oriented paper on the productiveness of structuring systems-impacted, student-centered programs from the ground up. While research on FIS is often deficit, I provide a counternarrative and detail how the impetus for RSP came from two FIS seeking to develop a prison-to-school pipeline, and how organizing served as transformational resistance (Solorzano & Delgado Bernal, 2001) to the difficulties they confronted in higher education. FIS generated the vision and drew faculty support to establish RSP, developed programming to counter the stigma of being formerly incarcerated, established crossracial networks with entities working toward similar goals, and currently are engaged in efforts to expand RSP. Beyond supporting FIS, RSP students are at the forefront of various struggles at CSUN to ensure equitable access to education for other minoritized students (e.g., underrepresented Asian Americans and undocumented students). Thus, I also highlight how RSP’s ground-up model contributes to the success of FIS and nurtures an intersectional (Crenshaw, 1993) student organizing praxis.

Author

• Martha D. Escobar, California State University - Northridge