Invitation to NYU Metro Center's 40th Anniversary Weekend Events

“Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in . . .”

—Luke 14:23

Dear Friends and Comrades, Allies and Accomplices of NYU Metro Center:

It gives me great pleasure to write to you.

On May 17, 1954, the Brown vs. Board of Education decision was declared. Now 64 years later—to the date—we gather to pursue stubbornly the cause for which Brown was fought. NYU Metro Center—born after Brown in the wake of great but too often broken promises, perhaps chief among them the idea that we as a nation might live up to our creed—has for forty years committed itself to transforming our world for the better, forcing open the gates of opportunity, erecting in the light of new suns the fragile pillars of justice that Brown sought to strengthen.

Thus for forty years, our center has stood in service of those things that laws might promise but cannot enforce. More than six decades after Brown our schools are more segregated than ever, our children continue to endure a separate and unequal education, and our country seems more divided than ever.

In fact, in NYC, we know that among the 1.1 million students, only about 200,000 of the city’s students experience the lofty promises of education, while nearly 900,000 do not. The questions beneath this equation are debilitating, that we have struggled to serve well the vast majority of children who come to us to learn.

What perhaps seems more devastating is the conclusion that the ways in which children experience education in New York City (and across the U.S.) can be, more or less, predicted by proximity to poverty or privilege. That is, 64 years post-Brown students, schools, and the very opportunities that all people deserve splinter into two universes—one held together by the gravity of privilege, the other torn asunder beneath the crushing weight of concentrated vulnerability. In all, this tale of two universes predicts, perhaps even drives, every disparity animating education in the State of New York and across the country.

“Separate and unequal” is the logic that defines the graduation gap, the achievement gap, the opportunity gap, the word gap, and other associated “gap” metaphors that point to the two uneven worlds of experience that we have allowed to persist. “Separate and unequal” is redesigned in almost every facet of schooling—from segregated schools, to tracked classrooms, to leveled groups within classrooms. Our fetish with exclusion has left us with a set of systems that engineer the very barriers that Brown sought to tear down.

Injustice is stubborn. It feeds on our indifference and the impulse of toxic individualism that divorces success from the collective. But hope is resilient. As segregation gives way to apartheid schooling, hope blossoms where equity is imagined.

Equity is not a singular word; it is plural. For no one entity, no one person can achieve equity alone. Equity is produced in the commons, through the collective efforts of people working together. In education, it compels all of us to work together, carrying the incredible weight of our past while erecting the monuments of a great and more prosperous human enfranchisement capable of electing for us a higher future.

A house divided will not stand. So in light of Brown, in light of this prodigious moment, I extend a very personal invitation to you to join us in celebrating forty years of labor worthwhile. In those forty years, we have seen incredible impacts: Schools and districts have transformed; students’ lives have been changed; parents have been supported; and new knowledge about how to get us closer to equity has emerged and continues to arise.

For example, we know that districts who engage with our Technical Assistance Center on Disproportionality with high fidelity over the course of four years show statistically significant decreases in disproportionality. We know that teachers in those districts are more likely to engage high-quality culturally responsive educational practices that lead to student success. We know that, because of our work, students are served better and in ways they deserve.

We know that our Equity Investment (EQI) system, which is the pioneering work of our Center for Strategic Solution, can help create better schools out of good ones, prepare willing leaders to grapple with tough questions of human practice and distal and mesial bias. We know that working together, using a broader and bolder approach to education that we can transform our schools.

This is why it is important that you join us for our Metro Center at 40 festivities. On Thursday, May 17, 2018—the anniversary of the landmark Brown decision—at 5:30 pm, I personally invite you to attend our first NYU Metro Center Gala Celebration. The event is free, though formal. (In fact, all of our 40th anniversary events are free to the public, and dressing up is optional.) There will be music and dancing and singing and laughter and honest reflection about how far we’ve come and how far we have yet to go.

On Friday, May 18, 2018, we are hosting our annual Technical Assistance Center on Disproportionality Summer Institute. Our featured guests include Dr. Yohuru Williams, Dr. Khalil Muhammad, and author Shaka Senghor. Also joining us will be Dr. Audrey Trainor, Dr. Eddie Fergus, as well as many, many other leading equity scholars and thought leaders. Lunchtime will feature a very special presentation from Kenneth Morris, a direct descendent of Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington. And on Friday evening, we wrap up the day by honoring Dr. Pedro Noguera who will be in conversation with Chancellor Betty Rosa and CNN’s own Bakari Sellers. They will be speaking on how we might transform not only our schools, but also our society through our schools.

On Saturday, May 19, 2018, we are hosting the second annual Decolonizing Education Conference in collaboration with the Expanded Success Initiative. Our featured speaker is New York City’s own Dr. Jamila Lyiscott. The conference will also feature amazing sessions on transformative teaching, through interactive sessions the move us closer to the angles of critical pedagogy, culturally relevant-sustaining education, restorative justice, trauma-informed practice, mindfulness and meditation, and other educational innovations pursuant of equity. That afternoon, we will showcase all of NYU Metro Center’s internal units, our amazing staff, and their breathtaking work. The showcase will be formatted as an interactive Gallery Exhibit, which will be followed by a “High Tea” conversation with our very own Dr. LaRuth Gray and legal analyst Laura Coates. Our celebration of NYU Metro Center projects and programs ends with a performance presentation with Rohina Malik, who will present her acclaimed one-woman play focusing on the lives of Muslim women following the events of 9/11.

On Sunday, May 20, 2018, we will celebrate youth by learning from our future. The Broadway Advocacy Coalition (BAC) joins Metro’s programs: College Prep Academy/1199 Workforce, Center for Community Engagement and Outreach and Liberty Partnerships Programs, as well as Urban Word NYC and the Urban Youth Collaborative to bring us the power of youth leadership, vision, and voice combined with transformative artistry. The event will feature themes emerging from conversations between artists and intellectuals, and intergenerational dialogues the put our past in conversation with our future. The day is enriched by performances and break-out workshop sessions. Come out, as our celebration of youth is not just about our young people; it is about the manifold things we all stand to learn from them.

Please register here and take a peek at our special 40th anniversary program for location information for all events. Finally, please come out. Come willing. Come wanting. But Come. Come to all, or come to any of our events throughout the weekend. In your presence we find hope. And as Emily Dickenson reminds us:

“Hope” is the thing with feathers –

That perches in the soul –

And sings the tune without the words –

And never stops – at all –

See you soon.

Warmly, 

David