racial issues in education essay

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Remote learning turned spotlight on gaps in resources, funding, and tech — but also offered hints on reform

“Unequal” is a multipart series highlighting the work of Harvard faculty, staff, students, alumni, and researchers on issues of race and inequality across the U.S. This part looks at how the pandemic called attention to issues surrounding the racial achievement gap in America.

The pandemic has disrupted education nationwide, turning a spotlight on existing racial and economic disparities, and creating the potential for a lost generation. Even before the outbreak, students in vulnerable communities — particularly predominately Black, Indigenous, and other majority-minority areas — were already facing inequality in everything from resources (ranging from books to counselors) to student-teacher ratios and extracurriculars.

The additional stressors of systemic racism and the trauma induced by poverty and violence, both cited as aggravating health and wellness as at a Weatherhead Institute panel , pose serious obstacles to learning as well. “Before the pandemic, children and families who are marginalized were living under such challenging conditions that it made it difficult for them to get a high-quality education,” said Paul Reville, founder and director of the Education Redesign Lab at the Harvard Graduate School of Education (GSE).

Educators hope that the may triggers a broader conversation about reform and renewed efforts to narrow the longstanding racial achievement gap. They say that research shows virtually all of the nation’s schoolchildren have fallen behind, with students of color having lost the most ground, particularly in math. They also note that the full-time reopening of schools presents opportunities to introduce changes and that some of the lessons from remote learning, particularly in the area of technology, can be put to use to help students catch up from the pandemic as well as to begin to level the playing field.

The disparities laid bare by the COVID-19 outbreak became apparent from the first shutdowns. “The good news, of course, is that many schools were very fast in finding all kinds of ways to try to reach kids,” said Fernando M. Reimers , Ford Foundation Professor of the Practice in International Education and director of GSE’s Global Education Innovation Initiative and International Education Policy Program. He cautioned, however, that “those arrangements don’t begin to compare with what we’re able to do when kids could come to school, and they are particularly deficient at reaching the most vulnerable kids.” In addition, it turned out that many students simply lacked access.

“We’re beginning to understand that technology is a basic right. You cannot participate in society in the 21st century without access to it,” says Fernando Reimers of the Graduate School of Education.

Stephanie Mitchell/Harvard file photo

The rate of limited digital access for households was at 42 percent during last spring’s shutdowns, before drifting down to about 31 percent this fall, suggesting that school districts improved their adaptation to remote learning, according to an analysis by the UCLA Center for Neighborhood Knowledge of U.S. Census data. (Indeed, Education Week and other sources reported that school districts around the nation rushed to hand out millions of laptops, tablets, and Chromebooks in the months after going remote.)

The report also makes clear the degree of racial and economic digital inequality. Black and Hispanic households with school-aged children were 1.3 to 1.4 times as likely as white ones to face limited access to computers and the internet, and more than two in five low-income households had only limited access. It’s a problem that could have far-reaching consequences given that young students of color are much more likely to live in remote-only districts.

“We’re beginning to understand that technology is a basic right,” said Reimers. “You cannot participate in society in the 21st century without access to it.” Too many students, he said, “have no connectivity. They have no devices, or they have no home circumstances that provide them support.”

The issues extend beyond the technology. “There is something wonderful in being in contact with other humans, having a human who tells you, ‘It’s great to see you. How are things going at home?’” Reimers said. “I’ve done 35 case studies of innovative practices around the world. They all prioritize social, emotional well-being. Checking in with the kids. Making sure there is a touchpoint every day between a teacher and a student.”

The difference, said Reville, is apparent when comparing students from different economic circumstances. Students whose parents “could afford to hire a tutor … can compensate,” he said. “Those kids are going to do pretty well at keeping up. Whereas, if you’re in a single-parent family and mom is working two or three jobs to put food on the table, she can’t be home. It’s impossible for her to keep up and keep her kids connected.

“If you lose the connection, you lose the kid.”

“COVID just revealed how serious those inequities are,” said GSE Dean Bridget Long , the Saris Professor of Education and Economics. “It has disproportionately hurt low-income students, students with special needs, and school systems that are under-resourced.”

This disruption carries throughout the education process, from elementary school students (some of whom have simply stopped logging on to their online classes) through declining participation in higher education. Community colleges, for example, have “traditionally been a gateway for low-income students” into the professional classes, said Long, whose research focuses on issues of affordability and access. “COVID has just made all of those issues 10 times worse,” she said. “That’s where enrollment has fallen the most.”

In addition to highlighting such disparities, these losses underline a structural issue in public education. Many schools are under-resourced, and the major reason involves sources of school funding. A 2019 study found that predominantly white districts got $23 billion more than their non-white counterparts serving about the same number of students. The discrepancy is because property taxes are the primary source of funding for schools, and white districts tend to be wealthier than those of color.

The problem of resources extends beyond teachers, aides, equipment, and supplies, as schools have been tasked with an increasing number of responsibilities, from the basics of education to feeding and caring for the mental health of both students and their families.

“You think about schools and academics, but what COVID really made clear was that schools do so much more than that,” said Long. A child’s school, she stressed “is social, emotional support. It’s safety. It’s the food system. It is health care.”

“You think about schools and academics” … but a child’s school “is social, emotional support. It’s safety. It’s the food system. It is health care,” stressed GSE Dean Bridget Long.

Rose Lincoln/Harvard file photo

This safety net has been shredded just as more students need it. “We have 400,000 deaths and those are disproportionately affecting communities of color,” said Long. “So you can imagine the kids that are in those households. Are they able to come to school and learn when they’re dealing with this trauma?”

The damage is felt by the whole families. In an upcoming paper, focusing on parents of children ages 5 to 7, Cindy H. Liu, director of Harvard Medical School’s Developmental Risk and Cultural Disparities Laboratory , looks at the effects of COVID-related stress on parent’ mental health. This stress — from both health risks and grief — “likely has ramifications for those groups who are disadvantaged, particularly in getting support, as it exacerbates existing disparities in obtaining resources,” she said via email. “The unfortunate reality is that the pandemic is limiting the tangible supports [like childcare] that parents might actually need.”

Educators are overwhelmed as well. “Teachers are doing a phenomenal job connecting with students,” Long said about their performance online. “But they’ve lost the whole system — access to counselors, access to additional staff members and support. They’ve lost access to information. One clue is that the reporting of child abuse going down. It’s not that we think that child abuse is actually going down, but because you don’t have a set of adults watching and being with kids, it’s not being reported.”

The repercussions are chilling. “As we resume in-person education on a normal basis, we’re dealing with enormous gaps,” said Reville. “Some kids will come back with such educational deficits that unless their schools have a very well thought-out and effective program to help them catch up, they will never catch up. They may actually drop out of school. The immediate consequences of learning loss and disengagement are going to be a generation of people who will be less educated.”

There is hope, however. Just as the lockdown forced teachers to improvise, accelerating forms of online learning, so too may the recovery offer options for educational reform.

The solutions, say Reville, “are going to come from our community. This is a civic problem.” He applauded one example, the Somerville, Mass., public library program of outdoor Wi-Fi “pop ups,” which allow 24/7 access either through their own or library Chromebooks. “That’s the kind of imagination we need,” he said.

On a national level, he points to the creation of so-called “Children’s Cabinets.” Already in place in 30 states, these nonpartisan groups bring together leaders at the city, town, and state levels to address children’s needs through schools, libraries, and health centers. A July 2019 “ Children’s Cabinet Toolkit ” on the Education Redesign Lab site offers guidance for communities looking to form their own, with sample mission statements from Denver, Minneapolis, and Fairfax, Va.

Already the Education Redesign Lab is working on even more wide-reaching approaches. In Tennessee, for example, the Metro Nashville Public Schools has launched an innovative program, designed to provide each student with a personalized education plan. By pairing these students with school “navigators” — including teachers, librarians, and instructional coaches — the program aims to address each student’s particular needs.

“This is a chance to change the system,” said Reville. “By and large, our school systems are organized around a factory model, a one-size-fits-all approach. That wasn’t working very well before, and it’s working less well now.”

“Students have different needs,” agreed Long. “We just have to get a better understanding of what we need to prioritize and where students are” in all aspects of their home and school lives.

“By and large, our school systems are organized around a factory model, a one-size-fits-all approach. That wasn’t working very well before, and it’s working less well now,” says Paul Reville of the GSE.

Already, educators are discussing possible responses. Long and GSE helped create The Principals’ Network as one forum for sharing ideas, for example. With about 1,000 members, and multiple subgroups to address shared community issues, some viable answers have begun to emerge.

“We are going to need to expand learning time,” said Long. Some school systems, notably Texas’, already have begun discussing extending the school year, she said. In addition, Long, an internationally recognized economist who is a member of the  National Academy of Education and the  MDRC board, noted that educators are exploring innovative ways to utilize new tools like Zoom, even when classrooms reopen.

“This is an area where technology can help supplement what students are learning, giving them extra time — learning time, even tutoring time,” Long said.

Reimers, who serves on the UNESCO Commission on the Future of Education, has been brainstorming solutions that can be applied both here and abroad. These include urging wealthier countries to forgive loans, so that poorer countries do not have to cut back on basics such as education, and urging all countries to keep education a priority. The commission and its members are also helping to identify good practices and share them — globally.

Innovative uses of existing technology can also reach beyond traditional schooling. Reimers cites the work of a few former students who, working with Harvard Global Education Innovation Initiative,   HundrED , the  OECD Directorate for Education and Skills , and the  World Bank Group Education Global Practice, focused on podcasts to reach poor students in Colombia.

They began airing their math and Spanish lessons via the WhatsApp app, which was widely accessible. “They were so humorous that within a week, everyone was listening,” said Reimers. Soon, radio stations and other platforms began airing the 10-minute lessons, reaching not only children who were not in school, but also their adult relatives.

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Dismantling Systemic Racism in Schools: 8 Big Ideas

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The pandemic has changed everything, including exposing the deep fault lines in our nation’s schools. And the reality is that a growing number of Americans are refusing to stand for the systemic inequities in our country and our education system. To wit: In a nationally representative survey, conducted by the EdWeek Research Center in June, 87 percent of teachers, principals, and district leaders agreed that Black students face higher rates of school discipline than their white peers due to discrimination.

With the brutal killing of George Floyd in May, the Black Lives Matter protests surged, and America embarked on the largest movement in its history, according to an analysis by The New York Times. By some counts, nearly 10 percent of the nation’s adults—many of whom were white—marched, in rural communities and big cities alike in every state in the union.

Books about anti-racism dominated bestseller lists for months. Conversations changed. Students were activated in large numbers. And educators started to rethink their curriculum to promote Black Americans’ experiences and challenge the dominance of whiteness. A new awareness seemed to be emerging as the country began to reckon with its racist past.

And yet, when the EdWeek Research Center in August asked teachers if they had the training and resources necessary to teach an anti-racist curriculum, just 11 percent said they did .

So, even as educators see the need to equalize and improve the educational experience for Black students, they might not have the tools or the support to address curriculum, practices, and policies that have long denied Black students the same opportunities to thrive as their white peers.

That dissonance demands our attention. That’s why we chose to dedicate the entire issue of this Big Ideas special report to addressing anti-Black systemic racism in schools.

Below is a roundup of the report’s bold ideas—all of which the writers believe will lead to a more equitable education for Black students in both practice and policy.

We’re looking forward to hearing how you are working to create a better and safer educational experience for our nation’s Black students. Please connect with us on social media by using #K12BigIdeas or by emailing [email protected] .

1. Our public school system owes Black people reparations.

“Black Americans won’t reach true economic justice until our nation’s K-12 leaders fully confront and make amends for the public education system’s racist history,” writes Education Week’s Daarel Burnette II. Read more.

2. Self-reflection is painful and necessary.

Over the course of more than three decades, veteran reporter Debra Viadero, who is white, wrote more than 250 education stories for Education Week. She recruited three Black education scholars to review some of her coverage on achievement and opportunity. What did she learn? Read more.

3. Internet access is a universal right.

“Broadband access opens a gateway to generational progress that millions of Americans currently can’t enter,” Mark Lieberman, from Education Week, explains. Read more.

4. It’s time to end policing as we know it. (Opinion)

“We can only create safe spaces for students to learn with the full removal of SROs in schools and greater investments in counselors and therapists,” writes M’munga Songolo, a student from Portland, Ore. Read more, including the introduction by Education Week’s Corey Mitchell.

5. Teacher preparation programs must step up. (Opinion)

As part of building an anti-racist education system, teacher preparation programs have to completely abandon their current model and try something new, says Keziah Ridgeway, a teacher at Northeast High School in Philadelphia. Read more, including the introduction by Education Week’s Madeline Will.

6. Students need anti-bias training, too. (Opinion)

“My fellow high school students need training in inclusion, diversity, and anti-racism,” writes Zoë Jenkins, a student at Paul Laurence Dunbar High School in Lexington, Ky. “So I’m creating that training.” Read more, including the introduction by Education Week’s Catherine Gewertz.

7. Teachers need more than anti-racists resource lists.

“Teachers need to ask whose perspectives are at the core, who put them there, and why,” writes Education Week’s Sarah Schwartz. Read more , including Schwartz’s related Q&A with LaGarrett King , an associate professor of social studies at the University of Missouri’s College of Education.

8. Principals can’t build anti-racist schools alone.

It takes time. It’s uncomfortable. And there will be pushback. Principals need to root out policies and practices that disproportionately affect Black and brown students, but they will need support. Education Week’s Denisa R. Superville explores what that will take. Read more.

Illustrations by Jamiel Law A version of this article appeared in the September 23, 2020 edition of Education Week

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A pandemic that disproportionately affected communities of color, roadblocks that obstructed efforts to expand the franchise and protect voting discrimination, a growing movement to push anti-racist curricula out of schools – events over the past year have only underscored how prevalent systemic racism and bias is in America today.

What can be done to dismantle centuries of discrimination in the U.S.? How can a more equitable society be achieved? What makes racism such a complicated problem to solve? Black History Month is a time marked for honoring and reflecting on the experience of Black Americans, and it is also an opportunity to reexamine our nation’s deeply embedded racial problems and the possible solutions that could help build a more equitable society.

Stanford scholars are tackling these issues head-on in their research from the perspectives of history, education, law and other disciplines. For example, historian Clayborne Carson is working to preserve and promote the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. and religious studies scholar Lerone A. Martin has joined Stanford to continue expanding access and opportunities to learn from King’s teachings; sociologist Matthew Clair is examining how the criminal justice system can end a vicious cycle involving the disparate treatment of Black men; and education scholar Subini Ancy Annamma is studying ways to make education more equitable for historically marginalized students.

Learn more about these efforts and other projects examining racism and discrimination in areas like health and medicine, technology and the workplace below.

Update: Jan. 27, 2023: This story was originally published on Feb. 16, 2021, and has been updated on a number of occasions to include new content.

Understanding the impact of racism; advancing justice

One of the hardest elements of advancing racial justice is helping everyone understand the ways in which they are involved in a system or structure that perpetuates racism, according to Stanford legal scholar Ralph Richard Banks.

“The starting point for the center is the recognition that racial inequality and division have long been the fault line of American society. Thus, addressing racial inequity is essential to sustaining our nation, and furthering its democratic aspirations,” said Banks , the Jackson Eli Reynolds Professor of Law at Stanford Law School and co-founder of the Stanford Center for Racial Justice .

This sentiment was echoed by Stanford researcher Rebecca Hetey . One of the obstacles in solving inequality is people’s attitudes towards it, Hetey said. “One of the barriers of reducing inequality is how some people justify and rationalize it.”

How people talk about race and stereotypes matters. Here is some of that scholarship.

For Black Americans, COVID-19 is quickly reversing crucial economic gains

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How an ‘impact mindset’ unites activists of different races

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For democracy to work, racial inequalities must be addressed

The Stanford Center for Racial Justice is taking a hard look at the policies perpetuating systemic racism in America today and asking how we can imagine a more equitable society.

The psychological toll of George Floyd’s murder

As the nation mourned the death of George Floyd, more Black Americans than white Americans felt angry or sad – a finding that reveals the racial disparities of grief.

Seven factors contributing to American racism

Of the seven factors the researchers identified, perhaps the most insidious is passivism or passive racism, which includes an apathy toward systems of racial advantage or denial that those systems even exist.

Scholars reflect on Black history

Humanities and social sciences scholars reflect on “Black history as American history” and its impact on their personal and professional lives.

The history of Black History Month

It's February, so many teachers and schools are taking time to celebrate Black History Month. According to Stanford historian Michael Hines, there are still misunderstandings and misconceptions about the past, present, and future of the celebration.

Numbers about inequality don’t speak for themselves

In a new research paper, Stanford scholars Rebecca Hetey and Jennifer Eberhardt propose new ways to talk about racial disparities that exist across society, from education to health care and criminal justice systems.

Changing how people perceive problems

Drawing on an extensive body of research, Stanford psychologist Gregory Walton lays out a roadmap to positively influence the way people think about themselves and the world around them. These changes could improve society, too.

Welfare opposition linked to threats of racial standing

Research co-authored by sociologist Robb Willer finds that when white Americans perceive threats to their status as the dominant demographic group, their resentment of minorities increases. This resentment leads to opposing welfare programs they believe will mainly benefit minority groups.

Conversations about race between Black and white friends can feel risky, but are valuable

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Defusing racial bias

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Many white parents aren’t having ‘the talk’ about race with their kids

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Stereotyping makes people more likely to act badly

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Why white people downplay their individual racial privileges

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Clayborne Carson: Looking back at a legacy

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How race influences, amplifies backlash against outspoken women

When women break gender norms, the most negative reactions may come from people of the same race.

Examining disparities in education

Scholar Subini Ancy Annamma is studying ways to make education more equitable for historically marginalized students. Annamma’s research examines how schools contribute to the criminalization of Black youths by creating a culture of punishment that penalizes Black children more harshly than their white peers for the same behavior. Her work shows that youth of color are more likely to be closely watched, over-represented in special education, and reported to and arrested by police.

“These are all ways in which schools criminalize Black youth,” she said. “Day after day, these things start to sediment.”

That’s why Annamma has identified opportunities for teachers and administrators to intervene in these unfair practices. Below is some of that research, from Annamma and others.

New ‘Segregation Index’ shows American schools remain highly segregated by race, ethnicity, and economic status

Researchers at Stanford and USC developed a new tool to track neighborhood and school segregation in the U.S.

New evidence shows that school poverty shapes racial achievement gaps

Racial segregation leads to growing achievement gaps – but it does so entirely through differences in school poverty, according to new research from education Professor Sean Reardon, who is launching a new tool to help educators, parents and policymakers examine education trends by race and poverty level nationwide.

School closures intensify gentrification in Black neighborhoods nationwide

An analysis of census and school closure data finds that shuttering schools increases gentrification – but only in predominantly Black communities.

Ninth-grade ethnic studies helped students for years, Stanford researchers find

A new study shows that students assigned to an ethnic studies course had longer-term improvements in attendance and graduation rates.

Teaching about racism

Stanford sociologist Matthew Snipp discusses ways to educate students about race and ethnic relations in America.

Stanford scholar uncovers an early activist’s fight to get Black history into schools

In a new book, Assistant Professor Michael Hines chronicles the efforts of a Chicago schoolteacher in the 1930s who wanted to remedy the portrayal of Black history in textbooks of the time.

How disability intersects with race

Professor Alfredo J. Artiles discusses the complexities in creating inclusive policies for students with disabilities.

Access to program for black male students lowered dropout rates

New research led by Stanford education professor Thomas S. Dee provides the first evidence of effectiveness for a district-wide initiative targeted at black male high school students.

How school systems make criminals of Black youth

Stanford education professor Subini Ancy Annamma talks about the role schools play in creating a culture of punishment against Black students.

Reducing racial disparities in school discipline

Stanford psychologists find that brief exercises early in middle school can improve students’ relationships with their teachers, increase their sense of belonging and reduce teachers’ reports of discipline issues among black and Latino boys.

Science lessons through a different lens

In his new book, Science in the City, Stanford education professor Bryan A. Brown helps bridge the gap between students’ culture and the science classroom.

Teachers more likely to label black students as troublemakers, Stanford research shows

Stanford psychologists Jennifer Eberhardt and Jason Okonofua experimentally examined the psychological processes involved when teachers discipline black students more harshly than white students.

Why we need Black teachers

Travis Bristol, MA '04, talks about what it takes for schools to hire and retain teachers of color.

Understanding racism in the criminal justice system

Research has shown that time and time again, inequality is embedded into all facets of the criminal justice system. From being arrested to being charged, convicted and sentenced, people of color – particularly Black men – are disproportionately targeted by the police.

“So many reforms are needed: police accountability, judicial intervention, reducing prosecutorial power and increasing resources for public defenders are places we can start,” said sociologist Matthew Clair . “But beyond piecemeal reforms, we need to continue having critical conversations about transformation and the role of the courts in bringing about the abolition of police and prisons.”

Clair is one of several Stanford scholars who have examined the intersection of race and the criminal process and offered solutions to end the vicious cycle of racism. Here is some of that work.

Police Facebook posts disproportionately highlight crimes involving Black suspects, study finds

Researchers examined crime-related posts from 14,000 Facebook pages maintained by U.S. law enforcement agencies and found that Facebook users are exposed to posts that overrepresent Black suspects by 25% relative to local arrest rates.

Supporting students involved in the justice system

New data show that a one-page letter asking a teacher to support a youth as they navigate the difficult transition from juvenile detention back to school can reduce the likelihood that the student re-offends.

Race and mass criminalization in the U.S.

Stanford sociologist discusses how race and class inequalities are embedded in the American criminal legal system.

New Stanford research lab explores incarcerated students’ educational paths

Associate Professor Subini Annamma examines the policies and practices that push marginalized students out of school and into prisons.

Derek Chauvin verdict important, but much remains to be done

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A ‘veil of darkness’ reduces racial bias in traffic stops

After analyzing 95 million traffic stop records, filed by officers with 21 state patrol agencies and 35 municipal police forces from 2011 to 2018, researchers concluded that “police stops and search decisions suffer from persistent racial bias.”

Stanford big data study finds racial disparities in Oakland, Calif., police behavior, offers solutions

Analyzing thousands of data points, the researchers found racial disparities in how Oakland officers treated African Americans on routine traffic and pedestrian stops. They suggest 50 measures to improve police-community relations.

Race and the death penalty

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Diagnosing disparities in health, medicine

The COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately impacted communities of color and has highlighted the health disparities between Black Americans, whites and other demographic groups.

As Iris Gibbs , professor of radiation oncology and associate dean of MD program admissions, pointed out at an event sponsored by Stanford Medicine: “We need more sustained attention and real action towards eliminating health inequities, educating our entire community and going beyond ‘allyship,’ because that one fizzles out. We really do need people who are truly there all the way.”

Below is some of that research as well as solutions that can address some of the disparities in the American healthcare system.

Stanford researchers testing ways to improve clinical trial diversity

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Striking inequalities in maternal and infant health

Research by SIEPR’s Petra Persson and Maya Rossin-Slater finds wealthy Black mothers and infants in the U.S. fare worse than the poorest white mothers and infants.

More racial diversity among physicians would lead to better health among black men

A clinical trial in Oakland by Stanford researchers found that black men are more likely to seek out preventive care after being seen by black doctors compared to non-black doctors.

A better measuring stick: Algorithmic approach to pain diagnosis could eliminate racial bias

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Stanford Medicine community calls for action against racial injustice, inequities

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Racial disparity remains in heart-transplant mortality rates, Stanford study finds

African-American heart transplant patients have had persistently higher mortality rates than white patients, but exactly why still remains a mystery.

Finding the COVID-19 Victims that Big Data Misses

Widely used virus tracking data undercounts older people and people of color. Scholars propose a solution to this demographic bias.

Studying how racial stressors affect mental health

Farzana Saleem, an assistant professor at Stanford Graduate School of Education, is interested in the way Black youth and other young people of color navigate adolescence—and the racial stressors that can make the journey harder.

Infants’ race influences quality of hospital care in California

Disparities exist in how babies of different racial and ethnic origins are treated in California’s neonatal intensive care units, but this could be changed, say Stanford researchers.

Immigrants don’t move state-to-state in search of health benefits

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Decoding bias in media, technology

Driving Artificial Intelligence are machine learning algorithms, sets of rules that tell a computer how to solve a problem, perform a task and in some cases, predict an outcome. These predictive models are based on massive datasets to recognize certain patterns, which according to communication scholar Angele Christin , sometimes come flawed with human bias . 

“Technology changes things, but perhaps not always as much as we think,” Christin said. “Social context matters a lot in shaping the actual effects of the technological tools. […] So, it’s important to understand that connection between humans and machines.”

Below is some of that research, as well as other ways discrimination unfolds across technology, in the media, and ways to counteract it.

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Identifying discrimination in the workplace and economy

From who moves forward in the hiring process to who receives funding from venture capitalists, research has revealed how Blacks and other minority groups are discriminated against in the workplace and economy-at-large. 

“There is not one silver bullet here that you can walk away with. Hiring and retention with respect to employee diversity are complex problems,” said Adina Sterling , associate professor of organizational behavior at the Graduate School of Business (GSB). 

Sterling has offered a few places where employers can expand employee diversity at their companies. For example, she suggests hiring managers track data about their recruitment methods and the pools that result from those efforts, as well as examining who they ultimately hire.

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Neag School of Education

Reducing racism in schools: the promise of anti-racist policies.

• by: Britney L. Jones
• September 22, 2020
• Community Engagement

Introduction

In 2020, the deaths of Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and others led to a resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement across the nation and around the globe. The revitalization of this movement has come with increased public demand for policy change, and specific calls for anti-racist policies in schools. As a result, many educational leaders are grappling with what this means for their respective contexts, and the extent to which their school or district’s current policies measure up to public demand.

Educating and training teachers and administrators on how to enact culturally relevant and inclusive practices is one step towards eliminating racism in schools.

Educating and training teachers and administrators on how to enact culturally relevant and inclusive practices is one step towards eliminating racism in schools. Expressing a commitment to anti-racism through school policies, statements, guidelines, or codes takes these efforts a step further. Within the last decade, some schools and districts have penned their own anti-racist policies to detail the steps they are taking to disrupt racism within their locale. In this brief, I describe these policies and highlight recent initiatives aimed at eliminating racism in schools. As school and district leaders advance their own anti-racist policies and objectives, this policy brief provides guidance based on the practices of diverse districts in the U.S. and elsewhere.

Anti-Racist Policy in Schools

Anti-racist policies are usually documents drafted by a governing body and disseminated to staff, parents, and students in a particular district or school. Similar to a code of conduct, school handbook, or anti-bullying policy, the policy states the organization’s commitment to anti-racism and lays out procedures that must be followed in order to uphold the organization’s commitment to the cause of dismantling racism to create an inclusive, equity-oriented environment. Over the past decade, schools and districts, both nationally and internationally, have written and adopted policies to address racism, discrimination, and inequity in schools. U.S. districts often refer to these policies as equity policies, while in places such as the United Kingdom (U.K.), Australia, Ireland, and South Africa, similar policies are usually entitled anti-racist policies. Despite the difference in name, they often share similar objectives and features. Anti-racist and equity policies typically start with a statement of assurance that the board or governing body has considered the importance of racial equity, followed by a renunciation of discriminatory behavior within their context. Next, the document includes a definition of racism. Then, these policies describe the steps taken by the governing body to ensure equity or anti-racism.

Components of Anti-Racist Policy: Areas to Address

For this brief I examined over 25 publicly available equity or anti-racist policies from several states in the U.S. and from schools in Australia, South Africa, Ireland and the U.K. I found that most policies address racism through the lenses of:

• school environment,
• incident reporting,
• data analysis, and

After addressing these components, policies typically offer guidance or present action steps to support implementation. These include:

• providing a clear and accurate definition of racism for consumers of the policy,
• devising a plan for policy dissemination,
• appointing an anti-racist committee or point person,
• coupling equity/anti-racist policy with other school or district-wide policies, and
• partnering with external organizations.

Below I briefly describe each of these components.

School Environment: Creating an Anti-Racist/Equity-Oriented Culture and Climate

Most of the policies discuss the school environment at length. Generally, they describe ways in which school staff can create and maintain a welcoming and inclusive environment for all students. One way policies describe achieving this goal is through representation of multiple racial and ethnic backgrounds in curricula, texts, hallway displays, and digital media. They also state the importance of incorporating positive role models and discussing issues of race and diversity within classrooms and during school-wide events. Several anti-racist/equity policies advocate events focusing on diversity and empathy building, such as Friendship Week or Multicultural Week. Policies also describe building teachers’ awareness of racism and bias as a means to shift culture and climate in the school. These policies require teachers to be mindful of cultural assumptions and bias, develop racial literacy, enact cultural responsiveness, and understand their own identity. In the Anti-Racist Policy of Bure Valley School in the U.K., the authors offer specific examples of how this can be done, asserting that students “should be confident to speak, hear or read in their home language in school” and have their names “accurately recorded and correctly pronounced” by teachers (p. 2).

Reporting: Developing a System for Reporting Racial Incidents

Most policies also detail reporting requirements. Authors of these policies aim to ensure a system is in place to deal with incidents of racism and discrimination. This component often lays out a specific procedure for responding to an incident including requiring a written report, timeline for resolution, documentation of resolution, and family notification. In addition to forms for reporting, many anti-racist/equity policies require a racism logbook or place for complaints to be recorded permanently. These policies also describe ways in which schools could support students who may be victims of a racist or discriminatory act. Some policies note that support for students involved in an incident should be ongoing and coupled with psychological or mental health services. Additionally, some policies encourage schools to help students feel empowered to report incidents and develop strategies for dealing with racial conflict.

Staffing: Recruiting, Hiring, and Retaining Diverse Staff with Equity/Anti-Racist Mindsets

Many of the policies emphasize the need to recruit and retain staff members dedicated to anti-racism, and committed to providing equity-based training for new and veteran educators. In its equity statement, the Princeton Public Schools District in New Jersey states, “The goal is to attract, develop, inspire, and retain a diverse workforce within a supportive environment.” Several other schools and districts echo this sentiment within their policies by describing their efforts to diversify their staff, both in terms of demographics and beliefs. They attempt to fulfill this goal through recruitment of culturally and linguistically diverse teachers and administrators. They articulate the importance of hiring staff that mirrors the student population. Some districts or schools call for staff hiring to follow equal opportunity hiring procedures and the use of equity-oriented criteria for selection. For teachers already employed, policies name professional development and new staff training as opportunities to provide new learning around racial consciousness and inclusivity.

Data Analysis: Employing an Equity Lens to Identify Disparities and Inform Decision-Making

Several policies aim to challenge racism through race conscious data collection and review. According to these policies, “effective” review of data means testing for differences across student demographic groups in access, performance, and discipline. The Portland Public School District in Oregon suggests using data to identify and modify assessments that lead to over or under-representation of minoritized groups. For example, some policies identify focus areas such special education identification and suspension for review given the history of over-representation of students from minoritized groups in special education and among suspensions. Some state the goal of increasing the number of minoritized students enrolled in Advanced Placement courses. Others call for a closer look at how selective admissions criteria for enrollment may lead to adverse effects and the ways in which admissions testing may disadvantage students of color. Baltimore City Public Schools in Maryland states their plan to disaggregate data to “analyze trends, identify gaps, and develop racial equity priorities” (p. 4). To fulfill this objective of equity-oriented data analysis, some policies highlight the need for constant monitoring and reporting on progress towards goals.

Funding: Assessing and Allocating Funds for Equity Purposes

While undoubtedly important, funding is mentioned in only a few of the anti-racist/equity policies. Policymakers in Baltimore include the following line in their policy: “Ensure that purchasing/procurement practices provide access and economic opportunities within communities represented by students of color” (p. 4). This is one way that educational institutions can be mindful of their economic impact on the community. Schools may also decide to allot funds to ensure attainment of aforementioned objectives such as equitable hiring, staff training, and data analysis resources.

While undoubtedly important, funding is mentioned in only a few of the anti-racist/equity policies.

In sum, the policies reviewed tend to address five areas to enhance anti-racism and equity in their contexts. Creating equity-oriented objectives in the areas of school environment, incident reporting, staffing, data analysis, and funding is an important start. However, when drafting these documents, policymakers should include additional guidelines to support the implementation of anti-racist policies. Next, I describe some of the ways existing policies attempt to ensure attainment of policy objectives.

Components of Anti-Racist Policy: Process Elements to Support Implementation

Clearly and Accurately Define Racism

One way to create strong anti-racist policy is by providing a clear definition of racism to frame the policy. In addition to setting context for the policy, opening with a definition creates an opportunity to educate readers and norm on the school or district’s understanding of racism. Such definitions vary across policies. Some of the international anti-racist policies begin by distinguishing between personal and institutional racism and offer clear definitions for each. For example, in the U.K. the Truro School’s Anti-Racist policy relies on a definition from The Stephen Lawrence Inquiry Report, which states that institutional racism is “the collective failure of an organisation to 
provide an appropriate and professional service to people because of their colour, culture or ethnic origin.” The policy continues: “when a child is subject to racist bullying or harassment, their behaviour and attainment are likely to be affected; if the behaviour is treated in isolation without taking into consideration the issues and effects of racism, this can be described as institutional racism. The racist element must be explicitly recognised and dealt with” (p. 2). This definition is provided before any other components of the policy are explained. Policymakers should consider how their context defines equity and racism before laying out a plan to address these issues. Consumers of anti-racist policy may be better equipped to follow subsequent guidelines if they have a foundational understanding of the problem and the purpose of the policy.

Policy Dissemination

The second way policymakers intend to make these policies come alive is through a plan for dissemination. Many policies are available online, on the school or district website. Other strategies for distribution include a physical copy in a designated location such as a school’s main office and inclusion in student and staff handbooks. One district states that a summary of the policy will be included in students’ yearly planners. Other ideas for dissemination include public displays in prominent areas of the school, placement in newsletters, and discussions during assemblies. Importantly, several anti-racist/equity policies name all parties that should review the policy, including staff, parents, students, contractors, service provides, and any other school visitors.  

  Appointing a Committee or Point-Person

The third way policymakers support implementation of these policies is by putting an individual or group in charge of monitoring the school’s progress towards goals. In some cases this is the superintendent or another school leader; in other contexts, an equity committee is charged with this responsibility. For example, in Shaker Heights, Ohio there is an equity task force made up of 11 educators, nine community members, and two students. In general, the governing body or individual is required to report to the school board, make recommendations based on data, promote alignment between equity and other goals, present tools or resources, and ensure compliance with state and federal laws. Most policies describe the need for an annual report or review as part of their action plan.

Coupling Anti-Racist/Equity Policies with Other School Policies

A fourth way to promote accountability and adherence to anti-racist/equity policy is by associating it with other school policies, especially those that are well established. Most of the policies reviewed for this brief are linked to other policies focusing on topics such as: discipline, behavior, anti-bullying, school safety, the staff code of conduct, and the student code of conduct. Several anti-racist/equity policies identify their relationship to standards and curriculum and federal laws regarding race and discrimination. Attaching these policies to existing initiatives helps to integrate them into the organizational fabric of these educational institutions.

Partnering with External Organizations

Finally, to support implementation of anti-racist policy, schools and districts should seek guidance from organizations already committed to anti-racist work. Several policies name equity-based or anti-racist organizations with which they were affiliated. This is an important component because it lessens the burden on educational systems to deal with complex issues of race and equity on their own and presents the opportunity to rely on the expertise of government agencies, universities, community organizations, research organizations, and anti-racist nonprofits. This can also facilitate and strengthen relationships between schools and communities.

A Promising Example

As mentioned above, many of the existing anti-racist and equity policies were drafted after 2010. Yet, recent events and the current sociopolitical climate signal the need to revisit and strengthen these policies. One district has done just this. In June 2020, the Indianapolis Public School District in Indiana, led by superintendent Aleesia Johnson, unanimously adopted a new Racial Equity Policy and publicly affirmed that Black lives matter in a resolution. Resolution No. 7861 and Board Policy 1619 – Racial Equity Mindset, Commitment, and Actions comes at a time when the momentum of the Black Lives Matter movement is palpable. This district is demonstrating how to use policy, first, to take responsibility for systemic failure to adequately support Black and Brown students in the past, and, second, to plan for a better future.

In June 2020, the Indianapolis Public School District in Indiana, led by superintendent Aleesia Johnson, unanimously adopted a new Racial Equity Policy and publicly affirmed that Black lives matter in a resolution. Resolution No. 7861 and Board Policy 1619 – Racial Equity Mindset, Commitment, and Actions comes at a time when the momentum of the Black Lives Matter movement is palpable.

With this new policy, the Indianapolis Public School District details specific action steps to increase racial equity. These include:

• partnership with the Racial Equity Institute (which helps organizations challenge systems of power and increase equity);
• restructuring, reducing, and auditing police presence and practices in schools;
• implementing a Supplier Diversity Policy with the aim of supporting local businesses (particularly those owned by women, people of color, and veterans);
• creating school-based equity teams for data analysis;
• increasing the recruitment and retention of Black staff;
• ensuring equitable enrollment across school types;
• shifting the budget to be more student centered and allocating funds to aid schools demonstrating the highest need; and
• considering how housing segregation impacts school choice and limiting boundaries to school access in the enrollment process.

We can all learn from this policy, with its high level of detail alongside the very public commitment by the board and superintendent. Not only does this new policy incorporate many of the aforementioned components such as commitment to reform in the areas of funding, data analysis, and school environment, the Indianapolis Public School (IPS) District has also developed strong plans to support its implementation. The district has partnered with the Racial Equity Institute to refine goals and train staff. IPS also signals the importance of considering other areas of anti-racist policy reform such as police presence in schools, and recognizing Juneteenth as a district holiday. It is also worthwhile to note that the IPS district acted swiftly by moving up the release of this new policy (initially set to be released later in the summer) to respond to recent acts of racism and injustice in the national news. Other districts around the country should follow IPS’s lead.

Recommendations for Creating Anti-Racist Policies

The components of existing equity/anti-racist education policies described above provide a general understanding of what these policies should include: equity-oriented objectives for school climate, incident reporting, staffing, data analysis, and funding. The creators of these policies should also consider providing a clear definition of racism, laying out a plan regarding how to communicate the objectives of the policy to the broader community, specifying the individual(s) who will oversee policy implementation, identifying the connections between anti-racist policy and other school policies, and outlining how to leverage partnerships with external organizations committed to increasing equity.

In addition to these components, I share two additional suggestions for those drafting anti-racist policy. The first addresses the accessibility of anti-racist policy and associated tools or resources. The second deals with attention to the personal and interpersonal work that must be done to implement anti-racist policy. I describe each in further detail below.

Accessibility

Several schools and districts made their policies and equity tools easily accessible to staff and the public alike. Having materials and policies readily available increases the likelihood that teachers and school leaders have access to and use resources. It also creates a more collegial environment as other schools and districts attempt to create their own anti-racist policies. For example, the Minneapolis Public School District in Minnesota shares an Equity and Diversity Impact Assessment tool on their website, and the Jefferson County Public School District in Louisville, Kentucky publicly shares their tools for equity analysis. Rather than reinventing tools, other districts may choose to cite and borrow from such existing assessments. The Shaker Heights, Ohio School District website provides a link to an equity resources page with suggested reading and links to equity-oriented organizations, while the Indianapolis Public Schools website has a link to its  “Say Their Names” toolkit “to help foster productive conversations about race and civil disobedience.” Links to these sorts of additional resources, readings, and campaigns offer helpful guidance as schools and districts across the country, and beyond, attempt to strengthen their anti-racist efforts.

Attention to the Personal and Interpersonal Work of Anti-Racist Policy Implementation

Districts and schools seeking to advance anti-racism and equity can attend to the aforementioned components to create effective policy. However, they must also consider the deeply personal work that is required alongside anti-racist reform. Many of these policies ask school staff to interrogate their own biases, positions of power, and privilege. The extent to which these types of personal reflection are encouraged and occur contextualizes policy implementation. Based on a study done with schools in California, the Stanford Center for Opportunity Policy in Education identified characteristics of schools with a record of narrowing the impact of racism and inequity. The authors stress the need for equity-oriented school leaders to guide staff and high levels of trust among members of the school community. This report highlights the need to consider the ways in which school-level features and interactions matter for the implementation of anti-racist or equity policy. Thus, in addition to focusing on the components within anti-racist or equity policies, we must also consider the characteristics and dispositions associated with positive change and increased student performance at the school and district level.

Some districts have supported educators in engaging in the vital personal and interpersonal work necessary to advance anti-racism and equity. Pat Savage-Williams, president of Evanston Township Board of Education in Illinois, shares advice for fellow board members looking to challenge racial inequity. In her article posted on the school board website , she promotes many of the components described in this brief, such as being data informed, using school budgets to limit disparities, and developing external partnerships. Additionally, she suggests that board members be willing to undergo a personal journey of reflection and understanding to expand their knowledge of racial issues, and should “expect opposition.” This example underscores the work that must be done on an individual and interpersonal level to make these policies come alive.

This policy described the topics addressed in anti-racist schooling policies and outlined the shifts educational leaders are making to strengthen and clarify not only their policies, but also their personal stance on racism and equity.Policymakers must consider how they define racism, the objectives of anti-racist policy, and how to make the policy actionable. After creating and revising anti-racist policies, policymakers must also consider the characteristics of the school community in which these documents will live. Following these steps can lead to policy changes that interrupt the status quo. As students and communities demand change, educational institutions must consider how they will respond and whether that response disrupts or facilitates systems of inequity.  

Britney L. Jones is a doctoral candidate in the Learning, Leadership, and Education Policy program at the University of Connecticut’s Neag School of Education. Her research interests include culturally relevant and inclusive practices in K-12 contexts with a focus on teachers’ sociopolitical consciousness. Her doctoral work follows a BA in education studies and an MA in elementary teaching, both from Brown University. Britney also worked previously as a fourth-grade teacher and science curriculum developer. For more information, contact [email protected] .

CEPA is a research center based at the Neag School that seeks to inform educational leaders and policymakers on issues related to the development, implementation, and consequences of education policies.  Learn more about CEPA at  cepare.uconn.edu . Access the original PDF of this issue brief (including the complete Appendix).

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Recognizing and Overcoming Inequity in Education

About the author, sylvia schmelkes.

Sylvia Schmelkes is Provost of the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City.

22 January 2020 Introduction

I nequity is perhaps the most serious problem in education worldwide. It has multiple causes, and its consequences include differences in access to schooling, retention and, more importantly, learning. Globally, these differences correlate with the level of development of various countries and regions. In individual States, access to school is tied to, among other things, students' overall well-being, their social origins and cultural backgrounds, the language their families speak, whether or not they work outside of the home and, in some countries, their sex. Although the world has made progress in both absolute and relative numbers of enrolled students, the differences between the richest and the poorest, as well as those living in rural and urban areas, have not diminished. 1

These correlations do not occur naturally. They are the result of the lack of policies that consider equity in education as a principal vehicle for achieving more just societies. The pandemic has exacerbated these differences mainly due to the fact that technology, which is the means of access to distance schooling, presents one more layer of inequality, among many others.

The dimension of educational inequity

Around the world, 258 million, or 17 per cent of the world’s children, adolescents and youth, are out of school. The proportion is much larger in developing countries: 31 per cent in sub-Saharan Africa and 21 per cent in Central Asia, vs. 3 per cent in Europe and North America. 2  Learning, which is the purpose of schooling, fares even worse. For example, it would take 15-year-old Brazilian students 75 years, at their current rate of improvement, to reach wealthier countries’ average scores in math, and more than 260 years in reading. 3 Within countries, learning results, as measured through standardized tests, are almost always much lower for those living in poverty. In Mexico, for example, 80 per cent of indigenous children at the end of primary school don’t achieve basic levels in reading and math, scoring far below the average for primary school students. 4

The causes of educational inequity

There are many explanations for educational inequity. In my view, the most important ones are the following:

• Equity and equality are not the same thing. Equality means providing the same resources to everyone. Equity signifies giving more to those most in need. Countries with greater inequity in education results are also those in which governments distribute resources according to the political pressure they experience in providing education. Such pressures come from families in which the parents attended school, that reside in urban areas, belong to cultural majorities and who have a clear appreciation of the benefits of education. Much less pressure comes from rural areas and indigenous populations, or from impoverished urban areas. In these countries, fewer resources, including infrastructure, equipment, teachers, supervision and funding, are allocated to the disadvantaged, the poor and cultural minorities.
• Teachers are key agents for learning. Their training is crucial.  When insufficient priority is given to either initial or in-service teacher training, or to both, one can expect learning deficits. Teachers in poorer areas tend to have less training and to receive less in-service support.
• Most countries are very diverse. When a curriculum is overloaded and is the same for everyone, some students, generally those from rural areas, cultural minorities or living in poverty find little meaning in what is taught. When the language of instruction is different from their native tongue, students learn much less and drop out of school earlier.
• Disadvantaged students frequently encounter unfriendly or overtly offensive attitudes from both teachers and classmates. Such attitudes are derived from prejudices, stereotypes, outright racism and sexism. Students in hostile environments are affected in their disposition to learn, and many drop out early.

It doesn’t have to be like this

When left to inertial decision-making, education systems seem to be doomed to reproduce social and economic inequity. The commitment of both governments and societies to equity in education is both necessary and possible. There are several examples of more equitable educational systems in the world, and there are many subnational examples of successful policies fostering equity in education.

Why is equity in education important?

Education is a basic human right. More than that, it is an enabling right in the sense that, when respected, allows for the fulfillment of other human rights. Education has proven to affect general well-being, productivity, social capital, responsible citizenship and sustainable behaviour. Its equitable distribution allows for the creation of permeable societies and equity. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development includes Sustainable Development Goal 4, which aims to ensure “inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all”. One hundred eighty-four countries are committed to achieving this goal over the next decade. 5  The process of walking this road together has begun and requires impetus to continue, especially now that we must face the devastating consequences of a long-lasting pandemic. Further progress is crucial for humanity.

Notes  1 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization , Inclusive Education. All Means All , Global Education Monitoring Report 2020 (Paris, 2020), p.8. Available at https://en.unesco.org/gem-report/report/2020/inclusion . 2 Ibid., p. 4, 7. 3 World Bank Group, World Development Report 2018: Learning to Realize Education's Promise (Washington, DC, 2018), p. 3. Available at https://www.worldbank.org/en/publication/wdr2018 .  4 Instituto Nacional para la Evaluación de la Educación, "La educación obligatoria en México", Informe 2018 (Ciudad de México, 2018), p. 72. Available online at https://www.inee.edu.mx/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/P1I243.pdf . 5 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization , “Incheon Declaration and Framework for Action for the implementation of Sustainable Development Goal 4” (2015), p. 23. Available at  https://iite.unesco.org/publications/education-2030-incheon-declaration-framework-action-towards-inclusive-equitable-quality-education-lifelong-learning/   The UN Chronicle  is not an official record. It is privileged to host senior United Nations officials as well as distinguished contributors from outside the United Nations system whose views are not necessarily those of the United Nations. Similarly, the boundaries and names shown, and the designations used, in maps or articles do not necessarily imply endorsement or acceptance by the United Nations.   

Sailors for Sustainability: Sailing the Globe to Document Proven Solutions for Sustainable Living

Most of the solutions we have described are tangible examples of sustainability in action. Yet our sailing journey also made us realize that the most important ingredient for a sustainable future is sustainability from within. By that we mean adopting a different way of perceiving the Earth and our role in it.

What if We Could Put an End to Loss of Precious Lives on the Roads?

Road safety is neither confined to public health nor is it restricted to urban planning. It is a core 2030 Agenda matter. Reaching the objective of preventing at least 50 per cent of road traffic deaths and injuries by 2030 would be a significant contribution to every SDG and SDG transition.

Promoting Evidence-Based Prevention Strategies to Mitigate the Harms of Drug Use: The Role of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime

The engagement of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime with Member States is particularly focused on interventions addressing early adolescence through schools and families by piloting evidence-based, manualized programmes worldwide. 

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Racial Discrimination and Justice in Education Essay

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The Impact of Racism in Schools and on the Mental Health of Students

Funding is one of the main factors that ensure racial segregation and exacerbation of the plight of the black population. Being initially in a more disastrous economic situation, racial minority populations fall into a vicious circle. Low-funded schools in poor areas have low academic ratings, which further contributes to the reduction of the material base. Due to their poor academic performance and the need to earn a living, many minorities are deprived of the opportunity to receive prestigious higher education. They are left with low-skilled jobs, which makes it impossible for their children to go to private school or move to a prestigious area with well-funded public schools. In institutions with little funding, unfortunately, manifestations of racism still prevail.

A significant factor in systemic racism in modern schools is the theory of colorblindness as the prevailing ideology in schools and pedagogical universities. The total avoidance of racial topics in schools has led to a complete absence of material related to the culture of racial minorities in the curricula. An example is the complaint of the parents of one of the black students that, during the passage of civilizations, the Greeks, Romans, and Incas were discussed in the lessons, but nothing was said about Africa. However, there were a few African American students in the class (Yi et al., 2022). The white director justified herself by saying that this was the curriculum and that it was not customary at school to divide people by skin color. In response, the student’s mother stated that children have eyes, and they see everything. And she would like them to see that we had a strong and fruitful culture. This state of affairs is justified by the proponents of assimilationism and American patriotism, built mainly around the honoring of the merits of white settlers and the founding fathers.

Meanwhile, the works of many researchers provide evidence that a high level of colorblindness among students correlates with greater racial intolerance. One study on race relations was conducted among young “millennials”. As a result, thousands of reports were recorded of openly racist statements and actions of white people from the field of view of these students (Plaut, et al., 2018). Another study on colorblindness found that white students who avoid mentioning racial issues were less friendly on assignments with black partners. This could be because they have less eye contact.

The shortcomings of the described situation affect not only black students but also white teachers who have not received proper training in their time on how best to take into account the characteristics of students from racial minorities. One researcher writes that in his entire experience in multicultural education, he faced the almost universal embarrassment that racial issues caused to white teachers. A common complaint is: I feel helpless. What am I, as a white teacher, to do? One educator remarked that he had never seen African-American teachers say that they did not distinguish between races (Mekawi et al., 2017). This is further proof that racism and the factors leading to it contribute only to the split of social ties at school. Students from racial minorities feel this burden the most, which leads to their feeling of constant alienation. During the school years, conflicts with children “not like the rest” are especially aggravated – the state of affairs described above provides the basis for constant skirmishes, fights, and tension in institutions.

Suggestions for Creating an Inclusive School Environment

Among the educational factors supporting the status quo of widespread structural racism are the following. This is the system of financing public schools and the dominance of the ideology of colorblindness in schools and pedagogical universities. In the opposite direction, there is such a factor as the peculiarity of keeping educational statistics (Welton, et al., 2018). By providing up-to-date information on the state of affairs of students of various racial and ethnic groups, statistics give rise to the search for optimal solutions in the field of school policy.

The inclusion of racial and ethnic dimensions in educational statistics is intended to provide an objective assessment of the current situation regarding racial differences in American society in order to develop and improve racially relevant policies. In recent years, the ideas of culturally relevant pedagogy have been actively promoted in the US educational sphere. American citizens are becoming more interested and enlightened in the field of racial issues, which can be seen in activist speeches and anti-racist public actions.

It is crucial to teach racism in schools so that all pupils may understand what it is, how it affects, and how to stop tolerating it. There are many publications and learning experience plans that address racism. It is essential to ask teachers and principals to integrate lessons on racism into the syllabus. One can also request that your teachers incorporate novels with a variety of subjects (Welton, et al., 2018). Then, it is important to request that the school draft an inclusion and zero-tolerance statement. Counselors can encourage the instructors and administration to implement these policies at the school if they do not already exist in the code of conduct or other policies (Pizarro & Kohli, 2020). It is critical that schools have clear policies about race and how individuals are treated on campus.

Resources for the School Counselor to Deal With Prejudice and Its Impact at the School

Mekawi, Y., Bresin, K. & Hunter, C.D. (2017). Who is more likely to “not see race”? individual differences in racial colorblindness. Race and Social Problems, 9 (1), 207–217. Web.

The authors claim that many Americans support a colorblind racial philosophy, which emphasizes sameness and the equitable allocation of resources without regard to race. The current study looked at the relationships between aggressiveness, and empathy in white undergraduates and three distinct types of racial colorblindness, including ignorance of racial privilege, ignorance of institutional discrimination, and ignorance of overt racism. The findings showed two distinct trends. In contrast to ignorance of overt racism and institutional discrimination, which were linked to poorer cooperativeness, cognitive flexibility, and empathic concern, ignorance of racial privilege was associated with lower openness and viewpoint-taking. These findings are addressed in light of a larger body of research on bias and personality.

Pizarro, M., & Kohli, R. (2020). “I stopped sleeping”: Teachers of color and the impact of racial Battle Fatigue. Urban Education, 55 (7), 967–991. Web.

According to the authors, an operational definition of racial battle fatigue (RBF) is the mental, emotional, and physical costs of fighting racism. RBF is employed in this article to examine the effects of racism on educators of color who work in a predominately “White profession.” The scholars share counterstories of urban academics of color who confront racism on a regular basis in their workplaces. This has a negative effect on their well-being and ability to stay in the profession. The authors also discuss their resiliency and resistance tactics since they depend on a supportive community to persevere and change their schools.

Plaut, V. C., Thomas, K. M., Hurd, K., & Romano, C. A. (2018). Do Color blindness and multiculturalism remedy or foster discrimination and racism? Current Directions in Psychological Science, 27 (3), 200–206. Web.

This article gives psychology science’s perspective on the question of whether multiculturalism and colorblindness are more likely to prevent prejudice and racism than they are to promote it. The authors first concentrate on the results of a color-blind model. The study in this area reveals that while colorblindness may be appealing to certain people, it can also make people less sensitive to racism and prejudice. Additionally, according to the literature, color blindness generally has detrimental effects on intergroup relationships, minorities’ perceptions and results, and the promotion of diversity and inclusion in organizational settings. In the second section, the scholars look at the situations in which a multicultural perspective has beneficial or bad effects on intergroup relations, organizational diversity initiatives, and discrimination.

Welton, A. D., Owens, D. R., & Zamani-Gallaher, E. M. (2018). Anti-racist change: A conceptual framework for educational institutions to take systemic action. Teachers College Record, 120 (14), 1–22. Web.

In order to attain racial justice in education, people’s mindsets must also be changed to embrace a more anti-racist worldview. In order to investigate whether behaviors and leadership qualities could really encourage institutional change for racial justice, the authors review two sets of literature: studies on anti-racism and institutional transformation. However, they admit the constraints of each set of studies. The organizational transformation research often ignores equity concerns, notably racial conversations, while anti-racism research is more ideological and theoretical. The scholars combine essential ideas from the literature on organizational change and anti-racism to propose a conceptual framework that may be utilized to create a systematic anti-racist change at a wide level.

Yi, J., Neville, H. A., Todd, N. R., & Mekawi, Y. (2022). Ignoring race and denying racism: A meta-analysis of the associations between colorblind racial ideology, anti-Blackness, and other variables antithetical to racial justice . Journal of Counseling Psychology . Web.

The authors sought to comprehend how colorblind racial ideology (CBRI), or the rejection and minimizing of race and racism, can act as an obstacle to engaging in antiracist practice by relying on antiracism research. To find out if color evasion (ignorance of race) and power evasion (defiance of structural racism) CBRI were differently connected with anti-Blackness and mechanisms related to antiracism, the scholars specifically performed a meta-analysis. Results from 83 research with more than 25,000 participants and 375 effects reveal that varied effects depend on the kind of CBRI. The area of counseling psychology may be pushed by this meta-analysis to construct a bridge between different ideologies and the development of systemic reform.

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IvyPanda. (2023, November 25). Racial Discrimination and Justice in Education. https://ivypanda.com/essays/racial-discrimination-and-justice-in-education/

"Racial Discrimination and Justice in Education." IvyPanda , 25 Nov. 2023, ivypanda.com/essays/racial-discrimination-and-justice-in-education/.

IvyPanda . (2023) 'Racial Discrimination and Justice in Education'. 25 November.

IvyPanda . 2023. "Racial Discrimination and Justice in Education." November 25, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/racial-discrimination-and-justice-in-education/.

1. IvyPanda . "Racial Discrimination and Justice in Education." November 25, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/racial-discrimination-and-justice-in-education/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Racial Discrimination and Justice in Education." November 25, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/racial-discrimination-and-justice-in-education/.

August 19, 2022

In Schools, Honest Talk about Racism Can Reduce Discrimination

New laws make it harder for teachers to discuss racism and inequality, but psychological evidence shows these conversations dispel causes of bias and distress

By Camilla Mutoni Griffiths & Nicky Sullivan

Vanessa Brantley-Newton

“Where are the Native Americans now?” asked fifth grade students in an Iowa City classroom last year. There are many ways their teacher, Melanie Hester, might have answered. She could have pointed out that today Native Americans live in cities and towns across the U.S. About 20 percent live on reservations , and Hester could have used that to open a discussion of the U.S. government’s forcible movement and isolation of tribes. Hester might have also discussed how European and American settlers brutally killed many Native Americans in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Instead she evaded the question and continued her lesson without offering historical context for her students to understand the present. Teachers across the country are avoiding explicit conversations about race, racism and racial inequality because of a series of recent laws passed in several states. In Iowa, for example, a law prohibits any teaching that suggests the U.S. is “fundamentally or systematically racist or sexist.” The Iowa law also specifies that teachers must ensure that no student feels “discomfort, guilt, anguish or any other form of psychological distress on account of that individual’s race or sex.” The laws in other states lay out similar logic.

The legal language seems, for the most part, protective of children. But the effect is quite the opposite. As psychologists who study how parents and teachers communicate with kids about race, we can attest to an ever growing body of scientific evidence that suggests these laws are failing the children they purport to help.

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First, years of research make it evident that kids notice racial and ethnic disparities from an early age. For example, psychologists have found that white kids as young as age four will consistently pair white families with higher-wealth items (such as nice cars and bigger houses) and Black families with lower-wealth items (for instance, run-down cars and smaller houses). In other words, very young children are aware of persistent racial disparities in wealth. Around the same age, children begin forming preferences for wealthier kids with more “stuff,” which, given the link between wealth and racial background in the U.S., may result in white children preferring and choosing to play with other white peers over Black peers.

Second, we know that when children notice differences between people or groups, they usually look for an explanation. Here a psychological principle called the inherence bias comes into play. In general, when we see someone behave in a distinctly different way from others, we assume there is something inherently different about that person. Adults often fall into this trap: if someone cuts you off on the highway, you are likely to assume they are a bad driver rather than assume, for instance, that they are a good driver who happens to be rushing to a hospital in an emergency. In the same way, children are more likely to attribute a wealth difference between communities to the groups’ capabilities or intelligence rather than something external, such as a historical advantage one group has had over another. Children often go one step further and think that groups are biologically or innately different. These attitudes are what psychologists call essentialist beliefs because they attribute group differences to some deep, underlying and often unknown “essence.”

These tendencies toward inherence and essentialism are especially harmful when we think about children’s efforts to understand racial disparities. Scientists agree that race is not biological. It is not inherent or innate. Instead race is the product of social and cultural ideas that are imposed on groups of people. These ideas become codified in our institutions and in the ways that we interact with one another, thus producing the inequalities we see in the world.

This means that children need external explanations, such as historical injustices and racial discrimination, to understand the differences between groups that they are observing. Without that context, children can mistakenly believe that racial difference is inherent, which leaves them with an inaccurate understanding of the world. More concerning, these beliefs about the inherent or essential nature of racial difference are actually a foundation of racial bias. In fact, multiple studies have found that when kids have more essentialist beliefs about race, they also hold more stereotypes about other racial groups.

In other words, without explicit discussions about race and the external, rather than internal, causes of racial disparities, children will come to the wrong conclusions and may develop racial biases. In principle, these problems could apply to any child who is not given greater context for racial differences. White children may be especially at risk because they are often the least likely to have conversations about racism with their families. In fact, one of us (Sullivan) tracked almost 1,000 parents in 2020 and found that white Americans were significantly less likely to talk to their children about race than Black Americans, even after the much publicized murder of George Floyd prompted national protests and dialogue about racism.

When we think about new laws limiting discussion of race in schools, it’s critical to keep in mind how they will impact children of color specifically. The research we’ve discussed suggests that students will be more likely to develop racially biased views in the absence of explicit lessons. As a result, children of color are likely to face more discrimination, not less. This outcome is clearly at odds with the language of the laws, which explicitly state that children should not be made to feel psychological distress because of their race. Yet that is precisely what will happen if children of color face more discrimination.

In contrast, explicit conversations with kids about racial disparities can help reduce some of the negative consequences we have described. In one study, white elementary school students who received history lessons about racial discrimination faced by Black people had more positive views of Black people and were less likely to hold stereotypes than students who didn’t receive such lessons. And those lessons did not lead either white or Black children to hold more negative views of white Americans, which is a commonly voiced concern among those who oppose teaching about racism. There is also early evidence from a preprint paper (which has not yet been through peer review) that when parents engage in honest, accurate conversations about race with their children, it can decrease kids’ racial biases .

The laws passed in Iowa and elsewhere claim to protect kids from forming racist beliefs, but the research suggests they are more likely to do the opposite. When it comes to children’s understanding of racism and the development of racist beliefs, the biggest danger isn’t teaching or talking to children about these topics—it’s staying quiet.

Camilla Mutoni Griffiths is a social psychologist at Stanford University SPARQ. She studies how our interactions with American institutions contribute to racial attitudes and biases.

Nicky Sullivan Nicky Sullivan is a Ph.D. student in developmental and social psychology at Stanford.

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How Schools Can Address Racially-Charged Misinformation

August 1, 2024 | victorialynn | HEP News , Voices in Education

With racism, bias, and racially-charged misinformation increasingly in the news, HEP books offer tools for teachers, school leaders, and students to interrogate racist ideas and act toward just outcomes. In the selection of data-driven titles below, you can find resources to help your schools thrive this fall.

The Big Lie About Race in America’s Schools

Edited by Royel M. Johnson and Shaun R. Harper

In The Big Lie About Race in America’s Schools , Royel M. Johnson and Shaun Harper bring together leading education scholars and educators to confront the weaponized distortions that are currently undermining both public education and racial justice.

Unconscious Bias in Schools

A Developmental Approach to Exploring Race and Racism

By Tracey A. Benson and Sarah E. Fiarman

Unconscious Bias in Schools shows how information about unconscious bias can help shift conversations among educators to a more productive, collegial approach that has the potential to disrupt the patterns of perception that perpetuate racism and institutional injustice.

How Schools Make Race

Teaching Latinx Racialization in America

By Laura C. Chávez-Moreno

In How Schools Make Race , Laura C. Chávez-Moreno uncovers the process through which schools implicitly and explicitly shape their students’ concept of race and the often unintentional consequences of this on educational equity.

Race and Culturally Responsive Inquiry in Education

Improving Research, Evaluation, and Assessment

Edited by Stafford L. Hood, Henry T. Frierson, Rodney K. Hopson and Keena N. Arbuthnot

Race and Culturally Responsive Inquiry in Educatio n examines how assumptions about race and culture have shaped US education research and the interpretation and implementation of its results.

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Addressing Racist Microaggressions

By  Macy Wilson

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For most of my younger years, I was known as a kid who did well in school and liked to read. Despite living in a rural and homogenous area, I was never “othered” at school because of my racial and ethnic identities. I took women’s studies courses in college, wherein I began to learn the importance of various social identities and the intentional work that is needed to create and maintain inclusive spaces for everyone. I chose my graduate school because of its commitment to diversity, but I naïvely assumed that it would be a focal point of the majority of my classroom and applied clinical experiences.

As a cisgender woman who belongs to the LGBTQ community and identifies as black and Chicana, affirming diverse identities is important to me. I remember how, during my first year of graduate school, every student was required to take two diversity courses. During that time, I learned about Pamela Hays’s ADDRESSING model , which provides a framework for acknowledging and assessing clients holistically. Yet, in the subsequent courses I took, diversity was only vaguely referenced, with the exception of fellow students making a point to interject a distinct perspective.

I found that discouraging but was fortunate in having a practicum supervisor who intentionally integrated cultural aspects into our discussions about my clients. I also tried my best to surround myself with like-minded colleagues who appreciated the importance of diversity in all its forms.

My first encounter with explicit racism in a professional setting was at my second practicum site. The first unit to which I was assigned closed, forcing me to choose another unit to complete the remainder of my practicum experience. The deciding factor in choosing the second unit was that a close friend and colleague who conceptualized clients similarly to me also worked there. She seemed to enjoy her work with the clients, but she had occasionally shared her grievances about the unit supervisor (a white male) to me. I went to the unit with all of my academic and clinical knowledge, ready to create positive working relationships with my new team. However, it seemed that not everyone shared this perspective of openness and collegiality, particularly the unit supervisor.

Upon my arrival, and over the course of a month and a half, the unit supervisor never spoke to me. Initially, I excused his behavior as a consequence of him being busy, just not seeing me, or maybe that I failed to greet him loudly enough to hear and see me. But I was also beginning to feel resentful because I was consistently being ignored.

One day, my friend and colleague (a black woman) and I were sitting in a room with two white women while our clients were in groups. The supervisor stopped by and greeted the white women before returning to his office, as if my colleague and I were not even present. I later realized that I was not on the supervisor’s list for team emails, and I was missing important updates on my clients. I sent an email to request to be added to the list, our first correspondence ever, occurring nearly two months after me joining the unit.

So, I decided to test things: I made up my mind that I would see the supervisor in passing and greet him loudly so there was no doubt he could hear me. I did this, and called him by name with a smile as I passed. He still ignored me. As he continued to walk, he spoke to a white woman who was walking in the same direction as me. At that point, I realized his behavior was not simply a figment of my imagination. Rather, it had to be racism.

I pride myself on my assertiveness in school and the workplace, and I took comfort in the transparency of the supervisory relationship with my clinical supervisor. During one of our sessions, I decided to confide in him about the way that things had transpired between the unit supervisor and me. I shared the aforementioned examples. As I spoke, my supervisor seemed uncomfortable. So, I proceeded cautiously with my next statement: “I’m not calling him racist, but the way I have been treated feels like racism.” My supervisor responded hesitantly and noted that he had heard another person mention the “microaggressions” from other staff on the unit. As he continued to skirt around the issue, I felt frustrated with sharing my experience because he invalidated it by using a term to, essentially, soften the blow -- and he did not offer a course for resolution; instead, I offered my own.

When therapy is concerned, I always say, “It is not the responsibility of the client to educate the therapist.” I feel similarly when issues concerning various -isms are involved: it is not the responsibility of the oppressed to educate the oppressors. Yet that often ends up being the case.

Even in professional and academic spheres, the narratives of the oppressed are frequently excluded and replaced with generic (read: privileged) accounts, placing the onus on marginalized people to inform the privileged about their experiences. Similarly, when the narratives of the oppressed are included, there are many instances wherein the true struggle of oppression is glossed over in efforts to protect the feelings of those who may not empathize with the oppressed group. In a place where I assumed that my concerns would be validated and that my supervisor would advocate for and with me, I was disappointed by his passivity and efforts to sugarcoat what was obviously racism. I had colleagues who validated my experience and shared their own, but it is extremely difficult to change things for the better without those in positions of power on your side.

As I reflect on the courses I was taking during that time, none of them seemed especially appropriate for me to share these experiences of racist behavior. Many colleges and universities pride themselves on their commitment to diversity, yet that commitment often seems to be superficial. When course work focuses on specific examples that regularly showcase white, heterosexual, able-bodied individuals, the narratives of people of color, people who are disabled, LGBTQ people and so many more are dismissed and “othered” in the process.

I firmly believe that it is necessary for classes and academic spheres to provide intentional spaces for reflections on various systems of oppression, whether that be through case material, personal anecdotes from students or readings that consistently address multicultural issues. It is not enough to have two obligatory courses devoted to diversity while using a blanket approach for other courses .

As students and professors in higher education, we are called to do the work of inclusivity, particularly in academic settings so that it is more easily integrated within our respective spaces in the community. That is not to dismiss the difficult nature of intentional inclusivity, though, as it is hard work. We can only achieve goals of inclusiveness and anti-racism by continually challenging ourselves to learn more, by consistently applying and sharing our new knowledge, and through inviting others to share their personal experiences in safe and validating spaces .

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• Black Americans Have a Clear Vision for Reducing Racism but Little Hope It Will Happen

Many say key U.S. institutions should be rebuilt to ensure fair treatment

Table of contents.

• Black Americans see little improvement in their lives despite increased national attention to racial issues
• Few Black adults expect equality for Black people in the U.S.
• Black adults say racism and police brutality are extremely big problems for Black people in the U.S.
• Personal experiences with discrimination are widespread among Black Americans
• Black adults see voting as the most effective strategy for moving toward equality in the U.S.
• Some Black adults see Black businesses and communities as effective remedies for inequality
• Black Americans say race matters little when choosing political allies
• The legacy of slavery affects Black Americans today
• Most Black adults agree the descendants of enslaved people should be repaid
• The types of repayment Black adults think would be most helpful
• Responsibility for reparations and the likelihood repayment will occur
• Black adults say the criminal justice system needs to be completely rebuilt
• Black adults say political, economic and health care systems need major changes to ensure fair treatment
• Most Black adults say funding for police departments should stay the same or increase
• Acknowledgments
• Appendix: Supplemental tables
• The American Trends Panel survey methodology

Pew Research Center conducted this analysis to understand the nuances among Black people on issues of racial inequality and social change in the United States. This in-depth survey explores differences among Black Americans in their views on the social status of the Black population in the U.S.; their assessments of racial inequality; their visions for institutional and social change; and their outlook on the chances that these improvements will be made. The analysis is the latest in the Center’s series of in-depth surveys of public opinion among Black Americans (read the first, “ Faith Among Black Americans ” and “ Race Is Central to Identity for Black Americans and Affects How They Connect With Each Other ”).

The online survey of 3,912 Black U.S. adults was conducted Oct. 4-17, 2021. Black U.S. adults include those who are single-race, non-Hispanic Black Americans; multiracial non-Hispanic Black Americans; and adults who indicate they are Black and Hispanic. The survey includes 1,025 Black adults on Pew Research Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP) and 2,887 Black adults on Ipsos’ KnowledgePanel. Respondents on both panels are recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses.

Recruiting panelists by phone or mail ensures that nearly all U.S. Black adults have a chance of selection. This gives us confidence that any sample can represent the whole population (see our Methods 101 explainer on random sampling). Here are the questions used for the survey of Black adults, along with its responses and methodology .

The terms “Black Americans,” “Black people” and “Black adults” are used interchangeably throughout this report to refer to U.S. adults who self-identify as Black, either alone or in combination with other races or Hispanic identity.

Throughout this report, “Black, non-Hispanic” respondents are those who identify as single-race Black and say they have no Hispanic background. “Black Hispanic” respondents are those who identify as Black and say they have Hispanic background. We use the terms “Black Hispanic” and “Hispanic Black” interchangeably. “Multiracial” respondents are those who indicate two or more racial backgrounds (one of which is Black) and say they are not Hispanic.

Respondents were asked a question about how important being Black was to how they think about themselves. In this report, we use the term “being Black” when referencing responses to this question.

In this report, “immigrant” refers to people who were not U.S. citizens at birth – in other words, those born outside the U.S., Puerto Rico or other U.S. territories to parents who were not U.S. citizens. We use the terms “immigrant,” “born abroad” and “foreign-born” interchangeably.

Throughout this report, “Democrats and Democratic leaners” and just “Democrats” both refer to respondents who identify politically with the Democratic Party or who are independent or some other party but lean toward the Democratic Party. “Republicans and Republican leaners” and just “Republicans” both refer to respondents who identify politically with the Republican Party or are independent or some other party but lean toward the Republican Party.

Respondents were asked a question about their voter registration status. In this report, respondents are considered registered to vote if they self-report being absolutely certain they are registered at their current address. Respondents are considered not registered to vote if they report not being registered or express uncertainty about their registration.

To create the upper-, middle- and lower-income tiers, respondents’ 2020 family incomes were adjusted for differences in purchasing power by geographic region and household size. Respondents were then placed into income tiers: “Middle income” is defined as two-thirds to double the median annual income for the entire survey sample. “Lower income” falls below that range, and “upper income” lies above it. For more information about how the income tiers were created, read the methodology .

More than a year after the murder of George Floyd and the national protests, debate and political promises that ensued, 65% of Black Americans say the increased national attention on racial inequality has not led to changes that improved their lives. 1 And 44% say equality for Black people in the United States is not likely to be achieved, according to newly released findings from an October 2021 survey of Black Americans by Pew Research Center.

This is somewhat of a reversal in views from September 2020, when half of Black adults said the increased national focus on issues of race would lead to major policy changes to address racial inequality in the country and 56% expected changes that would make their lives better.

At the same time, many Black Americans are concerned about racial discrimination and its impact. Roughly eight-in-ten say they have personally experienced discrimination because of their race or ethnicity (79%), and most also say discrimination is the main reason many Black people cannot get ahead (68%).  

Even so, Black Americans have a clear vision for how to achieve change when it comes to racial inequality. This includes support for significant reforms to or complete overhauls of several U.S. institutions to ensure fair treatment, particularly the criminal justice system; political engagement, primarily in the form of voting; support for Black businesses to advance Black communities; and reparations in the forms of educational, business and homeownership assistance. Yet alongside their assessments of inequality and ideas about progress exists pessimism about whether U.S. society and its institutions will change in ways that would reduce racism.

These findings emerge from an extensive Pew Research Center survey of 3,912 Black Americans conducted online Oct. 4-17, 2021. The survey explores how Black Americans assess their position in U.S. society and their ideas about social change. Overall, Black Americans are clear on what they think the problems are facing the country and how to remedy them. However, they are skeptical that meaningful changes will take place in their lifetime.

Black Americans see racism in our laws as a big problem and discrimination as a roadblock to progress

Black adults were asked in the survey to assess the current nature of racism in the United States and whether structural or individual sources of this racism are a bigger problem for Black people. About half of Black adults (52%) say racism in our laws is a bigger problem than racism by individual people, while four-in-ten (43%) say acts of racism committed by individual people is the bigger problem. Only 3% of Black adults say that Black people do not experience discrimination in the U.S. today.

In assessing the magnitude of problems that they face, the majority of Black Americans say racism (63%), police brutality (60%) and economic inequality (54%) are extremely or very big problems for Black people living in the U.S. Slightly smaller shares say the same about the affordability of health care (47%), limitations on voting (46%), and the quality of K-12 schools (40%).

Aside from their critiques of U.S. institutions, Black adults also feel the impact of racial inequality personally. Most Black adults say they occasionally or frequently experience unfair treatment because of their race or ethnicity (79%), and two-thirds (68%) cite racial discrimination as the main reason many Black people cannot get ahead today.

Black Americans’ views on reducing racial inequality

Black Americans are clear on the challenges they face because of racism. They are also clear on the solutions. These range from overhauls of policing practices and the criminal justice system to civic engagement and reparations to descendants of people enslaved in the United States.

Changing U.S. institutions such as policing, courts and prison systems

About nine-in-ten Black adults say multiple aspects of the criminal justice system need some kind of change (minor, major or a complete overhaul) to ensure fair treatment, with nearly all saying so about policing (95%), the courts and judicial process (95%), and the prison system (94%).

Roughly half of Black adults say policing (49%), the courts and judicial process (48%), and the prison system (54%) need to be completely rebuilt for Black people to be treated fairly. Smaller shares say the same about the political system (42%), the economic system (37%) and the health care system (34%), according to the October survey.

While Black Americans are in favor of significant changes to policing, most want spending on police departments in their communities to stay the same (39%) or increase (35%). A little more than one-in-five (23%) think spending on police departments in their area should be decreased.

Black adults who favor decreases in police spending are most likely to name medical, mental health and social services (40%) as the top priority for those reappropriated funds. Smaller shares say K-12 schools (25%), roads, water systems and other infrastructure (12%), and reducing taxes (13%) should be the top priority.

Voting and ‘buying Black’ viewed as important strategies for Black community advancement

Black Americans also have clear views on the types of political and civic engagement they believe will move Black communities forward. About six-in-ten Black adults say voting (63%) and supporting Black businesses or “buying Black” (58%) are extremely or very effective strategies for moving Black people toward equality in the U.S. Smaller though still significant shares say the same about volunteering with organizations dedicated to Black equality (48%), protesting (42%) and contacting elected officials (40%).

Black adults were also asked about the effectiveness of Black economic and political independence in moving them toward equality. About four-in-ten (39%) say Black ownership of all businesses in Black neighborhoods would be an extremely or very effective strategy for moving toward racial equality, while roughly three-in-ten (31%) say the same about establishing a national Black political party. And about a quarter of Black adults (27%) say having Black neighborhoods governed entirely by Black elected officials would be extremely or very effective in moving Black people toward equality.

Most Black Americans support repayment for slavery

Discussions about atonement for slavery predate the founding of the United States. As early as 1672 , Quaker abolitionists advocated for enslaved people to be paid for their labor once they were free. And in recent years, some U.S. cities and institutions have implemented reparations policies to do just that.

Most Black Americans say the legacy of slavery affects the position of Black people in the U.S. either a great deal (55%) or a fair amount (30%), according to the survey. And roughly three-quarters (77%) say descendants of people enslaved in the U.S. should be repaid in some way.

Black adults who say descendants of the enslaved should be repaid support doing so in different ways. About eight-in-ten say repayment in the forms of educational scholarships (80%), financial assistance for starting or improving a business (77%), and financial assistance for buying or remodeling a home (76%) would be extremely or very helpful. A slightly smaller share (69%) say cash payments would be extremely or very helpful forms of repayment for the descendants of enslaved people.

Where the responsibility for repayment lies is also clear for Black Americans. Among those who say the descendants of enslaved people should be repaid, 81% say the U.S. federal government should have all or most of the responsibility for repayment. About three-quarters (76%) say businesses and banks that profited from slavery should bear all or most of the responsibility for repayment. And roughly six-in-ten say the same about colleges and universities that benefited from slavery (63%) and descendants of families who engaged in the slave trade (60%).

Black Americans are skeptical change will happen

Even though Black Americans’ visions for social change are clear, very few expect them to be implemented. Overall, 44% of Black adults say equality for Black people in the U.S. is a little or not at all likely. A little over a third (38%) say it is somewhat likely and only 13% say it is extremely or very likely.

They also do not think specific institutions will change. Two-thirds of Black adults say changes to the prison system (67%) and the courts and judicial process (65%) that would ensure fair treatment for Black people are a little or not at all likely in their lifetime. About six-in-ten (58%) say the same about policing. Only about one-in-ten say changes to policing (13%), the courts and judicial process (12%), and the prison system (11%) are extremely or very likely.

This pessimism is not only about the criminal justice system. The majority of Black adults say the political (63%), economic (62%) and health care (51%) systems are also unlikely to change in their lifetime.

Black Americans’ vision for social change includes reparations. However, much like their pessimism about institutional change, very few think they will see reparations in their lifetime. Among Black adults who say the descendants of people enslaved in the U.S. should be repaid, 82% say reparations for slavery are unlikely to occur in their lifetime. About one-in-ten (11%) say repayment is somewhat likely, while only 7% say repayment is extremely or very likely to happen in their lifetime.

Black Democrats, Republicans differ on assessments of inequality and visions for social change

Party affiliation is one key point of difference among Black Americans in their assessments of racial inequality and their visions for social change. Black Republicans and Republican leaners are more likely than Black Democrats and Democratic leaners to focus on the acts of individuals. For example, when summarizing the nature of racism against Black people in the U.S., the majority of Black Republicans (59%) say racist acts committed by individual people is a bigger problem for Black people than racism in our laws. Black Democrats (41%) are less likely to hold this view.

Black Republicans (45%) are also more likely than Black Democrats (21%) to say that Black people who cannot get ahead in the U.S. are mostly responsible for their own condition. And while similar shares of Black Republicans (79%) and Democrats (80%) say they experience racial discrimination on a regular basis, Republicans (64%) are more likely than Democrats (36%) to say that most Black people who want to get ahead can make it if they are willing to work hard.

On the other hand, Black Democrats are more likely than Black Republicans to focus on the impact that racial inequality has on Black Americans. Seven-in-ten Black Democrats (73%) say racial discrimination is the main reason many Black people cannot get ahead in the U.S, while about four-in-ten Black Republicans (44%) say the same. And Black Democrats are more likely than Black Republicans to say racism (67% vs. 46%) and police brutality (65% vs. 44%) are extremely big problems for Black people today.

Black Democrats are also more critical of U.S. institutions than Black Republicans are. For example, Black Democrats are more likely than Black Republicans to say the prison system (57% vs. 35%), policing (52% vs. 29%) and the courts and judicial process (50% vs. 35%) should be completely rebuilt for Black people to be treated fairly.

While the share of Black Democrats who want to see large-scale changes to the criminal justice system exceeds that of Black Republicans, they share similar views on police funding. Four-in-ten each of Black Democrats and Black Republicans say funding for police departments in their communities should remain the same, while around a third of each partisan coalition (36% and 37%, respectively) says funding should increase. Only about one-in-four Black Democrats (24%) and one-in-five Black Republicans (21%) say funding for police departments in their communities should decrease.

Among the survey’s other findings:

Black adults differ by age in their views on political strategies. Black adults ages 65 and older (77%) are most likely to say voting is an extremely or very effective strategy for moving Black people toward equality. They are significantly more likely than Black adults ages 18 to 29 (48%) and 30 to 49 (60%) to say this. Black adults 65 and older (48%) are also more likely than those ages 30 to 49 (38%) and 50 to 64 (42%) to say protesting is an extremely or very effective strategy. Roughly four-in-ten Black adults ages 18 to 29 say this (44%).

Gender plays a role in how Black adults view policing. Though majorities of Black women (65%) and men (56%) say police brutality is an extremely big problem for Black people living in the U.S. today, Black women are more likely than Black men to hold this view. When it comes to criminal justice, Black women (56%) and men (51%) are about equally likely to share the view that the prison system should be completely rebuilt to ensure fair treatment of Black people. However, Black women (52%) are slightly more likely than Black men (45%) to say this about policing. On the matter of police funding, Black women (39%) are slightly more likely than Black men (31%) to say police funding in their communities should be increased. On the other hand, Black men are more likely than Black women to prefer that funding stay the same (44% vs. 36%). Smaller shares of both Black men (23%) and women (22%) would like to see police funding decreased.

Income impacts Black adults’ views on reparations. Roughly eight-in-ten Black adults with lower (78%), middle (77%) and upper incomes (79%) say the descendants of people enslaved in the U.S. should receive reparations. Among those who support reparations, Black adults with upper and middle incomes (both 84%) are more likely than those with lower incomes (75%) to say educational scholarships would be an extremely or very helpful form of repayment. However, of those who support reparations, Black adults with lower (72%) and middle incomes (68%) are more likely than those with higher incomes (57%) to say cash payments would be an extremely or very helpful form of repayment for slavery.

• Black adults in the September 2020 survey only include those who say their race is Black alone and are non-Hispanic. The same is true only for the questions of improvements to Black people’s lives and equality in the United States in the October 2021 survey. Throughout the rest of this report, Black adults include those who say their race is Black alone and non-Hispanic; those who say their race is Black and at least one other race and non-Hispanic; or Black and Hispanic, unless otherwise noted. ↩

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7 findings that illustrate racial disparities in education

Subscribe to the brown center on education policy newsletter, liz sablich liz sablich director of communications - governance studies, brookings institution.

June 6, 2016

On Wednesday, June 8, the Brown Center is hosting a public event about racial inequities in education . An esteemed group of community leaders and education experts will gather to discuss how race and income level factor into education opportunities in present-day America, and why, in an age when the national dialogue routinely does focus on issues of racial inequality, isn’t education a bigger part of that conversation?

In advance of the event, we’ve put together a list of seven findings about racial disparities in education that scholars and contributors at the Brookings Institution have highlighted over the past year.

School readiness gaps are improving, except for black kids

As Richard Reeves details, a 2015 paper by  Sean Reardon and Ximena Portilla demonstrates that inequality in school readiness—in terms of math, reading, and behavior—declined quite significantly between 1998 and 2010, but that progress in terms of closing race gaps was uneven . While Hispanic-white differentials in school readiness have narrowed, the black-white gap has shown much less movement, and that movement is not statistically distinguishable from zero.

Misbehavior in school can pay off for white, but not black students

On the Chalkboard, Nicholas Papageorge summarizes his research that finds some non-cognitive skills that manifest as childhood misbehavior in the classroom, such as aggression, are also predictive of higher earnings later in life . He finds, however, that this benefit is limited to children who do not come from low-income families.  And preliminary evidence shows that for the same levels of externalizing behaviors, African American children face higher earnings penalties than white children.

Teacher-student racial mismatch harms black kids

Seth Gershenson’s troubling research finds that non-black teachers have significantly lower educational expectations for black students than black teachers do when evaluating the same students . For example, when a black student is evaluated by one black teacher and by one non-black teacher, the non-black teacher is about 30 percent less likely to expect that the student will complete a four-year college degree than the black teacher.

In another Chalkboard post, Dick Startz discusses Adam Wright’s findings that black and white teachers also evaluate the behavior of black students differently . When a black student has a black teacher that teacher is much, much less likely to see behavioral problems than when the same black student has a white teacher. This has serious and far-reaching implications. For instance, the research demonstrates that the more times a black student is matched with a black teacher, the less likely that student is to be suspended.

White and Asian students are more likely to be exposed to advanced classes

The practice of tracking—offering qualified students the opportunity to take advanced-level courses apart from many of their fellow students—is more prevalent in suburban middle class communities and in schools serving white and Asian students and less prevalent in urban schools and schools serving predominantly black, Hispanic, or disadvantaged populations. A historical belief that tracking itself is discriminatory in nature has led different communities to view and utilize the practice in unequal measure, according to Tom Loveless. And as a result, disadvantaged students are much less likely to be exposed to and to benefit from advanced coursework.

Gaps remain in high school completion rates

While the gap in high school completion is closing , black and Hispanic students are still less likely than their white counterparts to have a high school diploma , according to a paper on multidimensional poverty and race by Richard Reeves, Edward Rodrigue, and Elizabeth Kneebone.

Similar college enrollment rates mask unequal degree completion rates

Black and Latino students have only somewhat lower rates of post-secondary school enrollment than whites and Asians, but have much lower levels of educational attainment by their mid-20s, according to the Metropolitan Policy Program’s Martha Ross . While students across these groups enroll at similar rates, they earn bachelor’s degrees at significantly different rates:

Black and white students do not attend colleges of equal quality

While there has been an increase in black college-going, most of this rise has been in lower-quality institutions, at least in terms of alumni earnings, illustrates Jonathan Rothwell . Black students make up just four percent of undergraduate enrollees in the top decile of the nation’s four-year colleges, ranked by mid-career alumni earning figures. By contrast, 26 percent of students in the bottom rank of colleges are black:

These facts demonstrate what any number of Americans could tell you: there are significant racial disparities in terms of education access and quality in the US.  Join us on June 8 —online or in-person—as we discuss how to elevate this issue to the forefront of the political discussion this election year and other ways to address this fundamental problem. You can follow the conversation on Twitter with #EducationDisparities .

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Generation AI: Navigating the opportunities and risks of artificial intelligence in education

Artificial intelligence is a technology whose rise has rightly been compared to the discovery of fire. Being here in Athens, this city of ancient wisdom, I am reminded of the myth of Prometheus, who is said to have brought humanity the gift of fire from the gods. Like fire, AI holds disruptive potential to transform our lives in remarkable ways, at both individual and societal levels—from schools to healthcare, work, and transportation. But, as with fire, AI has two sides – it represents warmth and progress, but also great danger if mishandled.

This morning, I will outline some of the challenges, risks, and opportunities that AI, and generative AI in particular, presents for education. I’ll then describe UNESCO’s recent contributions in research, pedagogical tools, and normative instruments. These tools aim to answer some of the many open questions and envision future scenarios for today’s students and tomorrow’s adult citizens—whom I propose to call "Generation AI."

We are all "Generation AI"

Over the course of my career, I have witnessed at least four digital revolutions:

• From the advent of personal computers
• To the expansion of the Internet
• To the emergence of mobile devices and social media
• To the rapid and unexpected arrival of generative artificial intelligence like ChatGPT.

Each technological revolution has had broad social and educational implications, radically changing the way we live and how we learn. Although not all people and not all countries have felt these technological revolutions in the same way, everywhere the new worlds they create have been sources of both hope and concern.

To understand the risks and opportunities of generative AI systems and tools, we can look back to a chapter in our recent history: COVID-19 and its dramatic impact on education. Within three weeks of the pandemic’s onset, in March and April 2020, 1.6 billion students were deprived of regular school attendance and had to rely on technology to access formal education. In our publication " An Ed-tech Tragedy? ", we documented and analyzed the role of technology during this period of school closures. This unprecedented global disruption revealed the unintended consequences of shifting to technology-first solutions.

The lessons learned from the pandemic show that our choices for integrating technology must be guided by the four principles of inclusion, equity, quality, and accessibility. This is the main message of UNESCO’s 2023 Global Education Monitoring Report , which emphasizes that technology is never ideologically neutral, and new AI models and applications are no exception. Applications like ChatGPT generate new data—both linguistic and otherwise—from the vast amount of input available online. These applications raise fundamental questions for human knowledge, education, and learning.

To summarize, here are some distinctive features of the AI universe that are not always known to the user:

• Most AI applications come from one of the two leading countries in AI research and investment. This means certain worldviews are favored in content processing and production.
• The entire executive team of OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, is under 40 years old. This means that its language models reflect the specific ways of thinking and knowing of one generation.
• Major chatbots have been trained on only about 100 of the world’s 7,000 natural languages, with English as the primary source, given its predominance online. This means that 99% of the world's languages are currently excluded from the giant virtual library that underlies the most popular generative AI applications.
• 90% of online higher education materials come from the European Union or North America. This means, finally, that content production is developed mainly by just two regions, both made up of Western countries.

Clearly, these problems are linguistic, cultural, generational, and geopolitical. Therefore, it’s equally clear that, despite AI’s promise to diversify and enrich our knowledge commons, instead the universal encyclopedia may become homogenized and thus drastically impoverished. As the linguist Ludwig Wittgenstein noted: “the limits of my language mean the limits of my world.” We might extend this to say that the limits of large language models mean the limits of the worlds of knowledge they produce.

The epistemological and existential challenges

The first challenge posed by generative AI is epistemological, based on an entirely new relationship between human intelligence and intelligent machines. For the first time in human history, technology has made us both "consumers" and "producers," users and creators. We are both recipients of the information and new data we demand, and, crucially, the unique source and matrix of processing and production. In other words, generative AI applications work because they have devoured centuries of human knowledge stored in the digital encyclopedia we call the Web.

The scale of training data is hard to fathom: GPT-4 was trained on 10 trillion words. To put that in perspective, 10 trillion is the number of seconds separating us from our earliest Homo sapiens ancestors. It is a number that is possible only with computers and can be manipulated only with cutting-edge technology.

They are built from our collective intelligence, which continues to feed and shape them. By adding new content on the web, we give AI more information, greatly expanding its potential. Even as AI continues to mine our collective intelligence and may soon outpace human capabilities, as experts now argue, we will still have the tools to control and steer technology to benefit humanity. Some of the risks are obvious. The spread of hate speech, Holocaust distortion, disinformation on climate change, and election interference are just some of the challenges AI poses. Generation AI’s mission will be to ensure the dual goals of protecting ourselves and our planet from AI’s potential dangers while developing its potential to serve the public good.

To accomplish this mission, we need immediate action on three levels:

• First, we need strong normative frameworks developed by governments and international bodies. These frameworks must protect transparency, fairness, and ethics in fields such as governance, data protection, research, education, health, and the environment. In 2021, UNESCO led the way by adopting a Recommendation on the Ethics of AI , the first global instrument of its kind. Today, seven Member States are using it to shape their national AI strategies and policies, and more are following their lead.
• Second, our educational systems need to be transformed. They should be inspired by these principles and reimagined to train a new generation of digital citizens.
• Third, the private sector must step up. It needs to invest in the safety of AI systems and in technical skills for teachers, as well as the physical and social infrastructure for students. As societies, we must ensure that investments in smarter AI do not come at the expense of investments in educational systems and the people within them.

The impact of artificial intelligence on learning and teaching

At UNESCO, we are considering the many implications that AI presents for the future of education, with a clear universal goal: to develop AI technologies in a way that protects and expands our diverse knowledge systems and that equips learners with the skills and competencies they need to thrive in a digital age. To do this, we must address some difficult questions, which touch upon all dimensions of education, and which don’t always have clear answers.

First, what content and curriculum are appropriate for the digital age? For example, will we still need to learn foreign languages, and will we still need to train interpreters and translators? Intuitively, we may think it is no longer necessary. Why invest in human translation skills when a machine can do it faster and cheaper, with quality that is already similar and quickly improving? However, we know that learning and translating a language is more than just finding the right words and syntax. The cultural richness each language conveys is worth the educational investment and cannot be replaced by any chatbot. We must also reflect on how we develop and validate curriculum.

When I was the Minister of Education in Italy, textbooks and other educational resources were usually validated on four main criteria: (1) accuracy of content, (2) age appropriateness, (3) pedagogical relevance, and (4) cultural and social appropriateness. This typically required a year, or longer.

Do you know how long it takes to validate AI tools? Currently, and in most contexts, AI utilities require no validation at all. They have been released into the public space without discussion or review. Should we continue to tolerate this asymmetry?

A second pressing issue concerns assessment systems. How will we assess learning outcomes? Exams that were once "unhackable" are now easily hackable with AI applications. One example is the qualification of lawyers. In March 2023, GPT-4 passed the bar exam in the United States, scoring in the top 10% of all test takers. Earlier this year, the same programme passed the legal ethics exam. This raises tricky ethical questions, which have increased along with heated debate about the future of assessment, as students worldwide use AI for assignments. Should schools and universities try to block its use? Or rather, should we transform assessments to focus on presenting and supporting ideas and arguments with evidence?

Finally, the mother of all questions: will we still need teachers in the school of the future? Or, more cautiously and plausibly: how will AI tutors change the work of teachers? Of course, we do not have a crystal ball, so we must base our projections on objective data, not just desires. Let us start with teachers. I know we have many teachers in the room today. The recent Global Report on Teachers shows alarming data: A global shortage of 44 million teachers to meet Sustainable Development Goal 4 of the 2030 Agenda. We know there is a clear positive correlation between the qualifications of teachers and the quality of students' learning outcomes, which calls for investment in transforming and improving the teaching profession, starting with digital skills training.

Some argue that the use of generative AI can fill this gap, especially in disadvantaged settings where teachers are in short supply or work in such extreme conditions that they do not regularly show up for work. In fact, from observing diverse geographic and geopolitical contexts, we know what is needed: Well-run, well-equipped schools with well-trained adequately paid teachers motivated in their mission. These are key to finding the right balance between humans and machines, and emotional intelligence and technology, which must characterize the school of the future.

Steering technology for the improvement of educational systems

So far, we have asked how AI will change educational systems. But the opposite question is equally relevant: how will educational systems shape AI and its role in society? At UNESCO, we are helping Member States chart an ethical and responsible course.

In 2023, we published the first Guidance to Generative Artificial Intelligence in Education and Research , proposing key actions for government agencies to regulate GenAI based on safety and appropriateness for teaching and learning. These actions include:

The obligation to protect data privacy, especially for children. Young children need the same protections in the digital and online spheres as they have in the analog world.

Updating copyright laws for the age of artificial intelligence. We have seen many lawsuits against AI companies from writers, newspaper publishers, musicians, filmmakers, and voice actors. Countries need to determine how copyright applies to the datasets used to develop AI.

Setting age limits for using generative AI. We argue that untested and under-researched tools are not appropriate for primary education and should not be available in the classroom to children under 13. Similarly, there is strong evidence for banning smartphones in schools, given their clear negative impacts on mental health and well-being, as well as learning outcomes. A notification on a phone can result in children taking 20 minutes to re-concentrate on their class, affecting their retention and memory.

UNESCO’s guidelines for policy-makers and regulators are certainly important for defining the system of rules. But the real agents of transformation are students and teachers. It is for them that UNESCO is developing competency frameworks for using generative AI, which will be presented at the next Digital Learning Week in September at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris. The framework outlines the system of knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed to understand AI’s role in education and to use it ethically, effectively, safely, and meaningfully. It fits into the broader programme on global citizenship education and is now an integral component of it.

This leads to the question: What competencies are needed in the digital age? At first glance, the digital revolution seems to require widespread technical skills in computer programming, data science, and software engineering. Indeed, such skills are and will remain relevant. However, paradoxically, as artificial intelligence becomes more sophisticated and easier to use, the need for specialized technical skills may instead diminish. With generative AI, anyone can write a Shakespearean sonnet, program software, compose a violin concerto, or edit a photo. The quality of the result will depend on one’s ability to interact with technology. In this context, technical skills may no longer be essential, while the cognitive and socio-emotional abilities to interrogate the machine by asking the right questions will be critical.

This brings us to the crux of the educational transformation needed in the age of generative AI. To ask the right questions, one needs independent judgment, critical thinking, and emotional intelligence. In this sense, being part of Generation AI does not necessarily mean being a digital native, but rather becoming a digital citizen.

Choosing which technologies to adopt and which to reject

I would like to close by returning to our friend Prometheus, whose story reminds us of both the promise and perils of artificial intelligence—the fire of our times. As members of Generation AI, it is our responsibility to illuminate the path forward with this new fire. In doing so, we must embody the name Prometheus, which is to say, we need to exercise foresight. We must also exercise our agency and our ability to choose which technologies to adopt and which to reject – at individual, community, and government levels – through what author and computer scientist Cal Newport calls techno-selectionism. Our task as Generation AI is to make that selection. To steer AI so that it lights the way to more peaceful, just, and sustainable futures – and does not burn us along the way.

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Where Harris stands on Israel, abortion, climate change, education and the economy

[Editor's note: An earlier version of this story misstated Harris' proposed 2019 climate plan investment levels. The correct estimate is nearly seven times more than Biden's current proposal.]

Vice President Kamala Harris has emerged as the Democratic party’s presidential frontrunner after Joe Biden dropped his reelection bid Sunday.

Most Democrats have backed Harris, who announced her 2024 campaign for president shortly after Biden penned a letter explaining his decision to exit the 2024 race. Depending on who you ask, Harris is viewed as a moderate or a progressive reformer.

A former prosecutor, Harris was elected San Francisco’s district attorney with a “tough on crime” message in 2003 and worked in that role for seven years. She became the state’s attorney general in 2011 and served until 2017, when she was elected to represent California in the U.S. Senate.

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More: Election 2024 live updates: Endorsements rush in for Harris; Trump attacks begin

Harris launched her own unsuccessful presidential campaign at a rally in her hometown of Oakland, California in 2019. She dropped her bid for the White House and joined President Joe Biden’s ticket in August the following year. In 2021, she was sworn in as vice president.

Decades in the public spotlight and on the public record, here is what we know about where Harris stands on key issues:

Foreign Policy

As Biden’s second-in-command, Harris has largely stood behind his foreign policy positions, but there are signs she could be tougher on Israel over the war in Gaza than the president.

Harris has not given reason to believe she will deviate much from Biden on issues relating to China , for example. She is also unlikely to sway from supporting Ukraine. Harris said earlier this year that Russia has committed “crimes against humanity” in Ukraine over the last two years.

Harris has not directly opposed Biden’s staunch support for Israel, but has expressed sympathy for the more than 38,000 Palestinian lives lost during the conflict. She was one of the first high-profile members of his administration to call for an immediate temporary cease-fire in March. She acknowledged the “immense scale of suffering” in Gaza and said the Israel-Hamas war is a “humanitarian catastrophe” for innocent civilians.

Harris’ support for women’s access to abortions has been a focal point of her tenure as the country’s first female vice president. She embarked on a nationwide Reproductive Freedoms Tour earlier this year to draw attention to attacks on abortion access following the Dobbs decision . She attended her first stop in Wisconsin on Jan. 22, the 51st anniversary of Roe v. Wade .

Harris proposed federal protections that would limit state abortion restrictions during her first presidential campaign. Under her proposal, states would need to clear laws regulating abortion with the Department of Justice, which would need to confirm they are constitutional before taking effect, she explained in 2019 .

“How dare these elected leaders believe they are in a better position to tell women what they need, to tell women what is in their best interest?” Harris asked during a visit to a Minnesota Planned Parenthood clinic in March. “We have to be a nation that trusts women.”

Harris has traveled on an Economic Opportunity Tour this summer to defend the Biden administration’s economic policy and attack former President Donald Trump’s economic agenda.

While on tour, she touted legislation passed during Biden’s time in office, including the American Rescue Plan and Inflation Reduction Act . Harris has tried to emphasize that wage increases have outpaced inflation since the pandemic and made the case that Trump has plans to give more tax cuts to the rich.

“Donald Trump gave tax cuts to billionaires,” she said in a June social media post . “President Joe Biden and I are investing in the middle class and making sure billionaires and big corporations pay their fair share.”

The vice president has made clear that climate change is a key issue a Harris administration would seek to address.

While running for president in 2019, she proposed a climate plan with a $10 trillion price tag — nearly seven times more than the $1.6 trillion Biden has invested in addressing the issue. She also called for a ban on fracking.

As a senator, she co-sponsored the Green New Deal , which called for a dramatic increase in the production of renewable fuels, including wind, solar, and hydropower sources. The 10-year mobilization plan pushed for a transition to energy systems less reliant on generating greenhouse gases, which are the primary contributors to climate change.

Harris has been an advocate inside the Biden administration pushing for the president to forgive student loan debt , which became a staple of his domestic policy agenda.

As a senator, she co-sponsored Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ legislation to make two-year college free for all students and waive tuition for middle-class students attending four-year public universities.

At a Pride Month event last year, she criticized Florida’s 2022 “Don’t Say Gay” law banning educators from discussing sexual orientation and gender identity in elementary and middle school classrooms. Shortly after she announced her presidential campaign Sunday, the American Federation of Teachers endorsed Harris.

Rachel Barber is a 2024 election fellow at USA TODAY, focusing on politics and education. Follow her on X, formerly Twitter, at @rachelbarber_

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His political views differed from a transgender classmate’s, but they forged a bond that lasted a decade — until Mr. Vance seemed to pivot, politically and personally.

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Stephanie Saul, who covers education, reviewed about 90 emails and text messages spanning between 2014 and 2017.

When his book, “Hillbilly Elegy,” was published in 2016, JD Vance sent an email apologizing to a close friend from his Yale Law School days. The friend identified as transgender, but Mr. Vance referred to them in the book as a lesbian.

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“Hey Sofes, here’s an excerpt from my book,” Mr. Vance wrote to his friend, Sofia Nelson. “I send this to you not just to brag, but because I’m sure if you read it you’ll notice reference to ‘an extremely progressive lesbian.’”

“I recognize now that this may not accurately reflect how you think of yourself, and for that I am really sorry,” he wrote. “I hope you’re not offended, but if you are, I’m sorry! Love you, JD.”

Nelson wrote back the same day, calling Mr. Vance “buddy” and thanking him for “being sweet,” adding, “If you had written gender queer radical pragmatist, nobody would know what you mean.” Nelson asked for an autographed copy, then signed off with, “Love, Sofia.”

That exchange is from a series of emails between two friends, part of a close-knit group of 16 students who remained together throughout their first law school semester in the fall of 2010. As now-Senator Vance seeks the vice presidency, Nelson has shared about 90 of their emails and text messages, primarily from 2014 through 2017, with The New York Times.

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