The Interviewees
Gary Orfield is professor of Education and Social Policy at Harvard University, and director of the Harvard Civil Rights Project. He is co-author of the report, "Brown At 50: King's Dream or Plessy's Nightmare?" which reviews a half-century of changes in school segregation nationally, regionally, and by state. He has also co-authored Racial Inequity in Special Education; Raising Standards or Raising Barriers? Inequality and High-Stakes Testing in Public Education; Diversity Challenged: Evidence on the Impact of Affirmative Action; and Civil Rights in a New Era: Religion, Race, and Justice in a Changing America. Orfield has served as a court-appointed expert in school desegregation cases in St. Louis, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Little Rock and has been called to testify in civil rights suits by the Department of Justice and many civil rights and educational organizations.
Sheryll Cashin served as law clerk for the first African American U.S. Supreme Court Justice, Thurgood Marshall. Her book, The Failures of Integration: How Race and Class are Undermining the American Dream, explores her belief that segregation by race and class has set up "winner" and "loser" communities and that the pursuit of full and equal opportunity depends on integrationist public policy choices. Cashin served in the Clinton White House as an advisor on urban and economic policy, focusing on community development in inner-city neighborhoods. She is a Professor of Law at Georgetown University, a frequent radio and television commentator, and writes for academic journals and other periodicals on law, race relations, and inequality in America.
Lani Guinier was the first African American woman to be appointed a tenured professor at Harvard Law School. An expert on democratic theory, political representation, and educational equity, Guinier wrote The Miner's Canary with Gerald Torres, in which she explains how the experience of people of color signals larger institutional inequities in American democracy. She first came to public attention in 1993 when President Clinton nominated her, then withdrew her nomination to head the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice. Opposition focused on her advocacy of cumulative voting rather than our current winner-takes-all system. Her other books include The Tyranny of the Majority and Lift Every Voice: Turning a Civil Rights Setback into a New Vision of Social Justice.
Charles Ogletree is a professor and Vice Dean for Clinical Programs at Harvard Law School and Director of the Charles Houston Institute for Race and Justice. His book, All Deliberate Speed: Reflections on the First Half-Century of Brown v. Board of Education, blends personal memoir with legal analysis. A prominent legal theorist, particularly in constitutional law and criminal justice issues, Ogletree is the co-author of Beyond the Rodney King Story: An Investigation of Police Conduct in Minority Communities. He has worked with the Fred Friendly Seminars for many years and moderated series on affirmative action, civil liberties, ethics, drug policy, and the Bill of Rights. Ogletree also serves as co-chair of the Reparations Coordinating Committee, a group of lawyers and other experts researching a lawsuit to gain reparations payments for descendants of African slaves.
