Date: Thursday, April 25th, 2024
Time: 5-6:30pm
Location: Arts Journalism Building 175, Ball State University (Zoom streaming option is available)
This event is open to the public
Join us for a panel discussion and Q&A with four speakers offering their perspectives on recent laws impacting academic freedom in a number of states, including Indiana.
Speakers:
● Jacqueline Allain (PEN America)
● Miriam L. Wallace (Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences, University of Illinois-Springfield)
● John Petrovic (Professor and Program Coordinator, Social and Cultural Studies in Education, University of Alabama)
● Leah Watson (Senior Staff Attorney, ACLU’s Racial Justice Program)
Bio Notes:
As program coordinator for Freedom to Learn at PEN America, Jacqueline Allain designs and supports coalition-building efforts against educational gag orders and politically motivated restrictions on teaching and learning in our nation’s educational institutions. Allain holds a PhD in History from Duke University and an MEd in Curriculum & Instruction from the University of Virginia.
John Petrovic is Professor and Program Coordinator for the Social and Cultural Studies Concentration. He earned his PhD in 1999 from University of Colorado in Foundations of Education, specializing in philosophy and policy studies. He is a past President of the Southeast Philosophy of Education Society and Secretary of the American Educational Studies Association. A former ESL/FL teacher with a Masters degree in bilingual education from The Pennsylvania State University, Petrovic’s primary research interest is language policy in education. He is a Liberal political theorist, both critiquing and defending Liberal political theory, to inform analyses of policy in education. His publications appear in a variety of Foundations and Policy journals including Educational Studies, Educational Theory, The Oxford Review of Education, The Journal of Language and Politics, and Philosophy of Education. He has served on the Editorial Boards of several major journals, including the American Educational Research Journal and the International Multilingual Research Journal. He is editor of three books: International Perspectives on Bilingual Education (Information Age Press, 2010), Citizenship Education around The World: Local Contexts and Global Possibilities (co-edited with Aaron Kuntz, Routledge, 2014), and Indigenous Philosophies of Education around The World (co-edited with Roxanne Mitchell, Routledge, 2018). He is author of A Post-liberal Approach to Language Policy (Multilingual Matters, 2015). Petrovic teaches courses on Multicultural Education, Language Policy, and Philosophy of Education.
Miriam L. Wallace is currently the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences at the University of Illinois-Springfield. She was on the faculty and in academic administration for more than 28 years at New College of Florida, a public honors college known for its unusual degree of academic flexibility for students and faculty. She was Professor of English and founding faculty in Gender Studies, from 1995 and served as the elected Division Chair of Humanities from 2016 through 2022. In January of 2023 Dr. Wallace had a front row seat to the widening impact when Florida’s governor appointed six new Trustees to New College’s board with a mandate to remake the college on the model of the private Hillsdale College.
Leah Watson (she/her) is a Senior Staff Attorney with the ACLU’s Racial Justice Program, where she focuses on classroom censorship efforts (education gag orders), bias in policing, the criminalization of poverty, and racial disparities during the Covid-19 pandemic. Previously, she was Senior Counsel in the Criminal Justice Project at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, where she led litigation challenging debtors’ prisons and excessive fines and fees practices in Arkansas and Oklahoma. Leah co-authored reports, delivered community trainings and developed policy recommendations for fines and fees reform at the state and local levels. She launched P.R.O.T.E.C.T.: A Guide for Law Enforcement Engagement with Students of Color. Prior to joining the Lawyers’ Committee, Leah was a Senior Associate at Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP and an Associate at Baker Hostetler LLP. She led cross-border investigations in one of the top ten largest Foreign Corrupt Practices Act settlements. She was a member of the trial team that secured a victory in the largest residential mortgage backed securities trial in history. Leah obtained Special Immigrant Juvenile status and custody orders for pro bono clients and successfully challenged a pro bono client’s criminal conviction. During a six-month externship at the Washington Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights, she represented clients in disability rights, police misconduct, fair housing, and wage theft cases. Leah earned her J.D. from Harvard Law School. Prior to law school, she taught high school in Atlanta, Georgia through Teach for America. Leah earned her B.A. magna cum laude in Communication Studies and Sociology from Vanderbilt University.