About Us

Founding Executive Director

Jamel K. Donnor 
The Fred Huby Memorial Professor of Education; Faculty Affiliate, Arts & Sciences and William & Mary Law School.

Jamel K. Donnor, Ph.D., is a social scientist in the School of Education at William & Mary with faculty affiliations in Arts & Sciences and William & Mary’s Law School. His areas of expertise include American Democracy & Education, American Constitutionalism, American Conservatism, Right-Wing Extremism, Education Law & Policy, Higher Education Studies, and Intercollegiate Athletics.

Professor Donnor is arguably one of the top experts and scholars in the field of education in the area of race, inequality and the law. He has served as an expert rebuttal witness in Clark v. State Public Charter School Authority, one of the first anti-critical race theory lawsuits in the United States; and Emily Mais v. Albemarle County School Board, an anti-diversity lawsuit at the K-12 schooling level.

Professor Donnor draws upon political theory, legal history and case law to examine questions that explore the relationship between law and racial inequality, and how the U.S. Supreme Court interacts with conservative ideology and right-wing movements in interpreting the Constitution. (Read full bio.)

Faculty Fellow

Amy Quark
Amy A. Quark is a Professor of Sociology at William & Mary. Quark is the William & Mary lead for The Local Black Histories Project, a community-university research collaboration in partnership with The Village Initiative, a grassroots, non-profit dedicated to educational equity. Through The Local Black Histories Project, faculty and students collaborate with the Black descendant community to interpret 20th century Black histories in the greater Williamsburg area.

Quark’s work on The Local Black Histories Project was recognized with the Plumeri Award for Faculty Excellence in 2022, the national Alpha Kappa Delta Social Justice Award in 2023 and the Sharpe Professorship for Civic Renewal and Entrepreneurship in 2024. More broadly, she is the author of an award-winning book and numerous research articles.

This short video demonstrates the impact of this project on students. The video is focused on our research for the digital exhibit, Life on the Reservation Community. 

Postdoctoral Research Fellow

Joseph L. Boselovic
Joseph L. Boselovic ’11 is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at The Center for the Study of Education, Democracy & Justice. Dr. Boselovic is a sociologist of education who uses qualitative and experimental methods to explore the intersections of schooling, housing and parenting. His research program is centered on understanding how parents choose schools and the social forces shaping contemporary school segregation.