The Harvard Law School Library staff invites you to attend a book talk and discussion by Professor Charles J. Ogletree Jr. with co-editor, Professor Kimberly Jenkins Robinson in celebration of their recently published book, The Enduring Legacy of Rodriguez: Creating New Pathways to Equal Educational Opportunity (Harvard Education Press).
Wednesday, October 14, 2015, 12:00 noon.
Harvard Law School Room WCC 2036 Milstein East C (Directions)
Sponsored by the Harvard Law School Library.
Lunch will be served.
“In this ambitious volume, leading legal and educational scholars examine San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez (1973), the landmark US Supreme Court decision that held that the Constitution does not guarantee equality of educational opportunity. Charles J. Ogletree, Jr., and Kimberly Jenkins Robinson have brought together a host of experts in their field to examine the road that led up to the Rodriguez decision, assess the successes and failures of the reforms that followed in its wake, and lay out an array of creative strategies for addressing the ongoing inequality of resources and socioeconomic segregation that perpetuate the inequity of opportunity in education.
Successive waves of school reform efforts have failed to counteract the pernicious effects of inequality on student learning and achievement. The widely perceived exhaustion of these conventional approaches has led to a renewed interest in the Rodriguez decision and its impact on efforts to improve educational opportunity and outcomes for all students. A timely volume, The Enduring Legacy of Rodriguez makes a comprehensive statement that will inform research and reform for the next generation of scholars, educators, lawyers, and policy makers.” — Harvard Education Press
Charles Ogletree, the Harvard Law School Jesse Climenko Professor of Law, and Founding and Executive Director of the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice, is a prominent legal theorist who has made an international reputation by taking a hard look at complex issues of law and by working to secure the rights guaranteed by the Constitution for everyone equally under the law. Professor Ogletree opened the offices of The Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice (www.charleshamiltonhouston.org) in September 2005 as a tribute to the legendary civil rights lawyer and mentor and teacher of such great civil rights lawyers as Thurgood Marshall and Oliver Hill. The Institute has engaged in a wide range of important educational, legal, and policy issues over the past 6 years.
Professor Ogletree is the author of several important books on race and justice. One of his most recent publication is a book co-edited with Professor Austin Sarat of Amherst College entitled Life without Parole: America’s New Death Penalty? (NYU Press, 2012). Other publications include The Presumption of Guilt: The Arrest of Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Race, Class, and Crime in America (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010). In November 2009, NYU Press published Professor Ogletree’s book, co-edited with Professor Austin Sarat, The Road to Abolition: The Future of Capital Punishment in the United States. Also edited with Austin Sarat, When Law Fails: Making Sense of Miscarriages of Justice and From Lynch Mobs to the Killing State: Race and the Death Penalty in America were published by NYU Press in January of 2009 and May of 2006 respectively. His historical memoir, All Deliberate Speed: Reflections on the First Half-Century of Brown v. Board of Education, was published by W.W. Norton & Company in April 2004. Professor Ogletree also co-authored Beyond the Rodney King Story: An Investigation of Police Conduct in Minority Communities (Northeastern University Press 1995).
Professor Kimberly Jenkins Robinson is a national expert on the federal role in education and equal educational opportunity and teaches and writes in the area of education law and policy. Professor Robinson is a researcher at the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice at Harvard Law School. Her most recent article entitled Disrupting Education Federalism argues that the United States should reconstruct its understanding of education federalism to support a national effort to ensure equal access to an excellent education. This article is forthcoming in the Washington University Law Review in 2015. Her scholarship has appeared in the University of Chicago Law Review, Boston College Law Review, William and Mary Law Review, and UC Davis Law Review, among other venues. Prior to joining the Richmond Law faculty in 2010, Professor Robinson was an Associate Professor at Emory University School of Law and a visiting fellow at George Washington University Law School. She also served in the General Counsel’s Office of the United States Department of Education, where she helped draft federal policy on issues of race, sex, and disability discrimination. In addition, Professor Robinson represented school districts in school finance and constitutional law litigation as an associate with Hogan & Hartson, LLP (now Hogan Lovells). Professor Robinson is a frequent lecturer on education law and policy issues, including serving as the keynote speaker at the Is Education a Civil Right? conference at Harvard Law School in April 2013 and as the Dean’s Distinguished Lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education in March 2014.
Recent reviews:
“Ogletree, Robinson, and their expert cowriters offer hope that this decision can be reversed or that other ways can be found to counter its ill effects. This book is a thoughtful and overdue contribution to improving schools.” — Jack Jennings, author, Presidents, Congress, and the Public Schools
“There is an enduring tradition in this nation of relentless legal scholars who stand as champions for educational equity. This important volume follows in that tradition, deftly charting the future of educational opportunity.” — Ronald F. Ferguson, faculty cochair and director, The Achievement Gap Initiative, Harvard University
“Ogletree and Robinson remind us that equalizing educational opportunity in the United States is going to require fundamental changes in law and policy from many directions, from how we allocate our financial resources to rethinking our housing policies. Their book makes a very important contribution toward broadening the conversation we’re having around reforming education.” — Wendy Kopp, cofounder and CEO, Teach For All
“The Supreme Court’s effective abdication of any role in securing equal educational opportunity requires us to continue to grapple with the past, present, and future effects of the Rodriguez decision, and the essays here make essential contributions to that endeavor.”
— Thomas A. Saenz, president and general counsel, Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund