Townhall Meeting: Addressing Censorship in Education

Session Type: Invited Speaker Session

Abstract

Efforts to censor educators have spread across the United States. These efforts have especially targeted teaching about systemic racial injustice and LGBTQ communities and experiences. Local school boards, governors and state legislatures, and the prior federal administration have launched initiatives and passed laws that ban books and make it illegal for teach about these issues and communities. These laws and initiatives target both K-12 schools and higher education. This townhall is the third in a series of collaborations between AERA and the American Colleges of Teacher Education (AACTE). It brings together the AERA community to explore how education researchers can address these issues in and beyond their own institutions and work in coalitions to ensure that students at all levels of the US educational system receive a high-quality education that prepares them to engage in and sustain a pluralistic, multiracial democracy.

This Townhall Meeting will begin with a panel in which speakers will provide insight into current censorship and efforts to overcome it. Participants will then engage in small group and whole group dialogues. The Meeting will conclude with rapid fire takeaways on next next steps.

Sub Unit

• AERA Sessions

Moderator

• Dorothea M. Anagnostopoulos, The University of Connecticut

• Lynn Gangone, American Association of Colleges for Teachers of Education (AACTE)

• Felice J. Levine, American Educational Research Association

Panelists

• Mollie V. Blackburn, The Ohio State University

• Mónica Byrne-Jiménez, University Council for Educational Administration (UCEA)

• Zeus Leonardo, University of California - Berkeley

• Marvin Lynn, Portland State University

• Christine E. Sleeter, California State University - Monterey Bay

• sj Miller, Santa Fe Community College