Resisting Rollbacks to Race-Conscious Education Policies During the Trump Era

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Wednesday 4:20 pm Four Seasons Ballroom 2-3
  In Roundtable Session: Schools and Contentious Policies and Politics (Table 10)

Abstract

Race-conscious federal educational policies that aim both to redress racial inequality caused by state-sponsored discrimination and to achieve the benefits of diverse educational settings faced existential threat under the Trump Administration. Drawing on qualitative data from extensive document review and interviews with over 25 stakeholders in and outside of the federal government to explore and evaluate different forms of resistance to Trump-era civil rights rollbacks in education. Resistance consisted of unified messaging as well as congressional attempts to conduct oversight of the Department of Education and preserve funding. Litigation on procedural or novel grounds also proceeded at the federal, state and local levels. These forms of resistance achieved mixed results.

Authors

• Genevieve P. Siegel-Hawley, Virginia Commonwealth University

• April Weber Hewko, Virginia Commonwealth University

• Erica Frankenberg, Pennsylvania State University

• Sarah Asson, Education Northwest

• Talia S. Leibovitz, University of California - Berkeley

• Kathryn A. McDermott, University of Massachusetts - Amherst

• Janelle T. Scott, University of California - Berkeley

• Elizabeth H. DeBray, University of Georgia

• Isaiah Moore, Virginia Commonwealth University