OVERVIEW

What roles can schools and universities play in helping to shore up fragile democracies like the United States and other countries around the world—including through the production of true knowledge and of engaged democratic citizens? What challenges do they face in achieving these aims—and what can we learn from schools’ and universities’ own failures to promote truth and democracy in the past and present? 

How should we think about current outbursts of political energy—from governors’ and university presidents’ offices to legislative sessions to local school board meetings—focused on education policies and practices including K-12 and college curricula, counseling services, bathroom and sports team access, book selection, equity and inclusion policies, school safety, tenure policies, and school and university governance? 

Are these admirable exercises of democratic activism by engaged citizens, attacks on education in service of misinformation and demonstrable untruths, both, or neither? How can each of us contribute to a positive pathway forward? 

PANELISTS

John Silvanus Wilson, Jr.

Executive Director, Millennium Leadership Initiative, American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU) 

Neema Avashia

Ethnic Studies Coach, Boston Public Schools 

Sigal Ben-Porath

Professor, Graduate School of Education, University of Pennsylvania 

MODERATOR

Meira Levinson

Juliana W. and William Foss Thompson Professor of Education and Society, Harvard Graduate School of Education