Emancipatory Artificial Intelligence: Unforgetting AI Histories to Reimagine Liberatory Futures

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

This honorary presidential session convenes scholars at the intersection of educational equity and algorithmic justice to advance the 2026 AERA theme, “Unforgetting Histories and Imagining Futures.” Extending Thema Monroe-White’s Emancipatory Data Science framework, the session situates algorithmic harms within centuries of racial classification, surveillance, and communicentric bias. Anchored by Edmund W. Gordon’s work on communicentric bias, equitable assessment, and supplementary education, speakers call for decentering dominant perspectives and designing assessments and AI systems that uplift marginalized learners. Panelists examine AI surveillance in schools, platform governance across educational ecosystems, and biases within psychometrics and generative language models. They imagine futures where computational methods, AI literacy, equity ethics, and supplementary supports enable data sovereignty and reimagine AI education for liberation and flourishing.

Sub Unit

• AERA Honorary President Edmund W. Gordon Series

Chairs

• Edmund W. Gordon, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Malik Boykin, Brown University

Papers

• Emancipatory Artificial Intelligence: Unforgetting AI Histories to Reimagine Liberatory Futures - Thema Monroe-White, George Mason University

• Technology Innovates to Incarcerate: Race and the Growing Reliance of Schools on Artificial Intelligence (AI) Surveillance - Odis Johnson, Johns Hopkins University

• Artificial Intelligence Is Not Immune to Sociopolitical Failures - Ezekiel J. Dixon-Roman, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Emancipatory Data Science & Artificial Intelligence: Historicizing Data for Equitable AI Futures - Thema Monroe-White, George Mason University

Session Organizer

• Thema Monroe-White, George Mason University

Discussants

• Prudence L. Carter, Brown University

• Ebony O. McGee, Johns Hopkins University