Gary Orfield & Patricia Gándara

A leading resource for information on racial justice, The Civil Rights Project moved to UCLA in 2007 after a decade at Harvard University, where it was co-founded by Professors Orfield and Christopher Edley, Jr. The Project holds a distinguished reputation; most notably, its work was cited by the U.S. Supreme Court in its 2003 decision upholding affirmative action in college admissions.

Over the coming months, Professors Gándara and Orfield will monitor issues such as NCLB reauthorization, new regulations and legislation under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act/NCLB and the Civil Rights Act, initiate data collections, and conduct meetings with members of congress and high level Department of Education officials.

With an interest in contributing to the public forum, Professors Gándara and Orfield are planning to write a series of op-eds on amendments and federal education policy, as well as address issues related to state supported education. Their first essay, "Fund Gap Cripples State's Universities," which addressed California's state budget crisis and its effect on the UC, ran in the Sacramento Bee on November 7, 2009.

The Civil Rights Project will issue a major report, Equity Overlooked: Charter Schools and Civil Rights Policy, in early January of 2010. Although plans for an expansion of Charter schools are expected from the Obama Administration, Professors Gándara and Orfield hope to illuminate the findings of the project's recent research which shows that charter schools are, in fact, generally more segregated, and that African American and Latino children, in particular, tend to fare worse in segregated environments than their counterparts who attend integrated schools. Equity Overlooked indicates that there is little data showing that Charter schools actually improve student achievement. The report was overseen by Professor Orfield and authored by Civil Rights Project staff member Erika Frankenberg and Genevieve Siegel-Hawley, a doctoral student at UCLA's Graduate School of Education & Information Studies.

"Choice can be either a path toward real opportunity and equity, or toward segregated and unequal education," stated Professor Orfield. "If Charter schools are to be a central element in educational reform, then basic civil rights policies must be an integral element of the Obama policy."

A second major report by Orfield and Gándara issued by The Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos is expected in early 2010: Education and Children's Lives.

"Our report argues that the basic structure of our federal education policy since 1980 is a flawed one, and the report re-conceptualizes what is needed in order to ensure that our nation's educational system gets back to the levels of achievement and equity achieved forty years ago," states Gándara. "Our nation's children fared better and more equitably during the Johnson administration's "War on Poverty," which greatly closed the racial achievement gap, compared to the stagnation currently mandated by federal policymakers' overemphasis on high stakes testing. Our brief compares U.S. and international data, and recommends major policy changes."

The Civil Rights Project will also issue several other major reports in 2010, including an examination of successful community colleges, the dropout crisis for American Indians, the segregation of subsidized housing in southern California, and its annual report on segregation in the nation's schools.

Also anticipated in January of 2010 is the release of the latest book from Professor Gándara, Forbidden Language: English Learners and Restrictive Language Policies (co-edited with M. Hopkins) (Teachers College Press, 2010). The book, which examines the latest research on the impact of restrictive language policies on students, schools, teachers, and communities against what is known about actual outcomes in California, Arizona, and Massachusetts, offers commentary by prominent legal experts in bilingual education, who analyze and consider the efficacy of existing policies given new research.

Through the Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles, Professors Gándara and Orfield will host a bi-national conference at the University of California's Casa de California in Mexico City, Mexico on January 15–16, 2010. The conference will bring together Pre-K-12 education and migration researchers and policymakers from Mexico and the U.S., and presents an opportunity for both countries to share current research as well as establish a dialogue on critical education issues.

Earlier in 2009, Professor Gándara contributed an article, "On Hispanic Education – Progress and Stagnation: 25 Years of Hispanic Achievement," to Diverse: Issues in Higher Education magazine (June 2009). The article highlights the progress made by Latina women students, while underscoring the need to provide greater support to Latino men, who are still seriously underrepresented on college campuses nationwide.

In addition to the many reports, briefs, and other works of scholarship, Professors Gándara and Orfield have written numerous books, including:

The Latino Education Crisis: The Consequences of Failed Social Policies, (Harvard University Press 2009), written by P. Gándara with F. Contreras.

In 2006, Gándara and Orfield wrote, Expanding Opportunity in Higher Education: Leveraging Promise (with C. Horn) (State University of New York Press).

And in 2007 Gary Orfield authored, Lessons in Integration: Realizing the Promise of Racial Diversity in America's Public Schools (with E. Frankenberg) (University of Virginia Press).

Twenty-First Century Color Lines: Multiracial Change in Contemporary America (edited with A. Grant-Thomas) (Temple University Press 2009).

For more information related to Professors Patricia Gándara and Gary Orfield and their scholarship, please visit The Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles.

Graduate School of Education & Information Studies