Dismantling the School-to-Prison Pipeline with Judith Browne Dianis

Today’s History Story: The Five Terrible Ways Schools Are Preparing Our Children For Prisons

Hundreds of thousands of Black students are trapped in schools where officers and authority figures unfairly police their behavior. These biased practices and policies rob many students of their futures and feed them into the school-to-prison pipeline.

You may be familiar with this term, but it goes deeper than you might know. In this episode, we talk with Judith Browne Dianis, the “Godmother” of this phenomenon, to comprehensively understand the school-to-prison pipeline. She is a movement lawyer, professor, and executive director of Advancement Project, a civil rights organization committed to actualizing “America’s promise of a caring, inclusive, and just democracy.”

As a pioneer in deconstructing this insidious structural institution, Judith has published transformative reports like Derailed: The Schoolhouse to Jailhouse Track. She’s been doing this work for 20-plus years and isn't stopping anytime soon.

Black History Year (BHY) is produced by PushBlack, the nation's largest non-profit Black media company. PushBlack exists to amplify the stories of Black history you didn't learn in school and explore pathways to liberation with people who are leading the way. You make PushBlack happen with your contributions at BlackHistoryYear.com — most people donate $10 a month, but every dollar makes a difference. If this episode moved you, share it with your people! Thanks for supporting the work.

The BHY production team includes Tareq Alani, Brooke Brown, Tasha Taylor, and Lilly Workneh. Our producers are Cydney Smith, Len Webb for PushBlack, and Ronald Younger, who also edits the show. Black History Year’s executive producers are Mikel Elcessor for Limina House and Julian Walker for PushBlack.

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