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.

Advisory Board Members

Derek Black

Derek Black is a Professor of Law at the University of South Carolina School of Law, the Ernest F. Hollings Chair in Constitutional Law, and directs the Constitutional Law Center.  He is one of the nation’s foremost experts in education law and policy. He has served as an expert witness in school funding, voucher and federal policy litigation, and his research is routinely cited in the federal courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court.  He also testified before legislative bodies, including Congress. He has published in Yale Law Journal and Stanford Law Review, among dozens of others. He is a regular commentator and op-ed contributor for various national print, radio and television outlets.

His newest book, Dangerous Learning: The South’s Long War on Black Literacy, explores the connection between the criminalization of black literacy and freedom of thought in the nineteenth century to today’s attacks on racial equity, racial history and public education itself.

He began his career in teaching at Howard University School of Law, where he founded and directed the Education Rights Center.  Prior to teaching, he litigated education cases at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.

Stefan M. Bradley

Reared in Yakima, Washington, Stefan M. Bradley is the Charles Hamilton Houston 1915 Professor of Black Studies and History at Amherst College. Previously, he was the inaugural associate dean of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Initiatives in the Bellarmine College of Liberal Arts and Professor of African American Studies at Loyola Marymount University. Bradley received his Ph.D. in 20th Century US History with an Emphasis on the Black Experience from the University of Missouri-Columbia. An educator at heart, Bradley’s life ambition is to personally teach/mentor/inspire the young people who change the world for the better.

Bradley’s major works include his most recent book, If We Don’t Get It:  A People’s History of Ferguson. He also wrote Upending the Ivory Tower:  Civil Rights, Black Power, and the Ivy League, which won the History of Education Society Outstanding Book Award as well as the Anna Julia Cooper & CLR James Book Award from the National Council of Black Studies; Harlem vs. Columbia University:  Black Student Power in the Late 1960s, which won the Phillis Wheatley Book Prize; and, Alpha Phi Alpha:  A Legacy of Greatness, The Demands of Transcendence. He has appeared on C-Span BookTV, NPR, PRI, as well as in documentaries on the Oprah Winfrey Network and the History Channel.

He has received numerous honors and awards including the Don Brennan Humanitarian Award; the Better Family Life Excellence in Educational Leadership Award; the SLU Faculty Excellence Award; the Ernest A. Calloway, Jr. Teaching Excellence Award; and, the St. Louis American’s Salute to Excellence Young Leaders Award. He was selected as one of Delux Magazine’s Power 100 and received Loyola Marymount University’s Kente Graduation Outstanding Faculty Award.

Generous with his time, Bradley frequently volunteers on and off campus. In the wake of the tragic events in Ferguson and St. Louis, he engaged in discussions with representatives from the U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Commission and Department of Education. As a voice from the community, Bradley has appeared on BET, MSNBC, CNN, BBC, Al Jazeera and in the New York Times.

Jon Hale

Jon Hale is a professor of education and educational history at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.  His research examines the histories of student activism and the intersections of white supremacy and education policy. Hale has published five authored and co-edited books, including his award-winning book, The Freedom Schools: A History of Student Activists on the Frontlines of the Mississippi Civil Rights Movement (Columbia University Press, 2016) and his most recent books, The Choice We Face: How Segregation, Race, and Power Have Shaped Americas Most Controversial Education Reform Movement (Beacon Press, 2021) and  “A New Kind of Youth”: The Politics of Historically Black High Schools  (University of North Carolina Press, 2022). Hale’s research has also been featured in outlets including TIME, C-SPAN, The Atlantic, The American Scholar, The New Yorker, the Chicago Tribune, CNN, and The Washington Post. Hale’s service to the wider community is connected broadly to community based justice-centered education initiatives including the Children’s Defense Fund Freedom Schools®.

Shaun Harper

Shaun Harper is a Provost Professor in the Rossier School of Education, Marshall School of Business, and Price School of Public Policy at the University of Southern California. He also is the Clifford and Betty Allen Chair in Urban Leadership, as well as the USC Race and Equity Center’s founder and Chief Research Scientist. He was named University Professor in 2022, a distinction bestowed only to 30 of nearly 4,700 full-time USC faculty members.

Harper has published 14 books and over 125 academic papers. His research has been cited in nearly 30,000 published studies, on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives, and in multiple amicus briefs submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court. The New York Times, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, Sports Illustrated, and several hundred other news outlets have quoted Harper and featured his research. He has been interviewed on CNN, MSNBC, ESPN, PBS NewsHour, and NPR. In addition, he has authored more than 175 articles for The Washington Post, TIME, Forbes, Los Angeles Times, Rolling Stone and other widely-read newspapers and magazines. He also has testified to Congress four times and spoken at numerous White House, federal agency and Congressional Black Caucus convenings.

The recipient of dozens of top awards in his fields and seven honorary degrees, Professor Harper served as the 2020-2021 American Educational Research Association president and the 2016-2017 Association for the Study of Higher Education president. He also is a National Academy of Education inductee. He has been repeatedly recognized in Education Week as one of the 10 most influential scholars in the field of education; in 2026, he was ranked #3 overall and for the second consecutive year, #1 in education policy. Harper has worked with more than 400 educational institutions, corporations, city and state government agencies, the U.S. Air Force, and other organizations.

Gloria Ladson-Billings

Gloria Ladson-Billings is Professor Emerita and former Kellner Family Distinguished Professor in Urban Education in the Department of Curriculum & Instruction and was Faculty Affiliate in the Departments of Educational Policy Studies, Educational Leadership & Policy Analysis and Afro American Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is a former President of the National Academy of Education. She was the 2005-2006 president of the American Educational Research Association. She is a 2020-2021 Hagler Institute Fellow at Texas A&M University. She is a Fellow in the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and the British Academy. Ladson-Billings’ research examines the pedagogical practices of teachers who are successful with African American students. She also investigates Critical Race Theory applications to education.

Ladson-Billings is the author of the critically acclaimed books, The Dreamkeepers: Successful Teachers of African American Children, Crossing over to Canaan: The Journey of New Teachers in Diverse Classroom, Justice Matters, and author/editor of 10 other books and more than 100 journal articles and book chapters. She is the recipient of a myriad of scholarly awards and 9 honorary degrees.