May 1, 2019

Press Roundtable: New tool preview in advance of DeVos’ keynote in Baltimore

Please join Advancement Project National Office for a press roundtable as we showcase our new #AssaultAt map tool highlighting the importance of our national #PoliceFreeSchools campaign in advance of U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos’ keynote address to the Education Writers Association.

WHO: Judith Browne Dianis, Executive Director of Advancement Project National Office, Advancement Project staff, national education reporters

WHEN: Thursday, May 2 from noon to 1:30 p.m

WHERE: Advancement Project National Office, Washington DC.

Please email [email protected] to indicate whether you will be attending in person or via Zoom Video. We will provide our address and the Zoom link upon receiving your RSVP.

WHY: In advance of Secretary DeVos’ keynote address to the Education Writers Association in Baltimore, Advancement Project National Office is providing a media preview to a resource we have developed in order to underscore how the policies being passed by this administration help to uphold a history of criminalizing Black and Brown youth. As Advancement Project enters our 20^th year and continues our decades-long fight to dismantle structural racism, we are excited to share our new #AssaultAt map, created in collaboration with the Alliance for Educational Justice (AEJ).

Building upon the fall 2018 release of our co-authored report, “We Came to Learn: A Call to Action for Police-Free Schools,” our #AssaultAt map will exist as a part of a larger website, which we will walk through at the roundtable. While the website as a whole offers a history of policing in schools and urges for #PoliceFreeSchools, the #AssaultAt map charts the countless incidents of students being assaulted by school police in their places of learning. The map reflects numerous assaults captured on video or reported to local or national news outlets, but is by no means exhaustive. It is important to note, that there are many other assaults like these taking place regularly that don’t receive the same attention for any number of reasons, including lack of documentation and media bias. In viewing the #AssaultAt map, it becomes clear why #PoliceFreeSchools are essential to the well-being of our Black and Brown youth.

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Advancement Project National Office is a multi-racial civil rights organization working both nationally and locally to build power at the grassroots level in order to accelerate the quest for racial justice. Founded by a team of veteran civil rights lawyers in 1999, Advancement Project was created to develop and inspire community-based solutions based on the same high quality legal analysis and public education campaigns that produced the landmark civil rights victories of earlier eras.

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