Hess Week – Defending the Freedom to Teach

This panel will explore current political attacks on K-12 and college teachers’ freedom to teach and imagine ways forward.

• Introductory remarks by María R. Scharrón-del Río, Dean of the School of Education and Professor in the School Counseling Graduate Program at Brooklyn College
• Jose Jimenez, Principal of A.C.E. Academy for Scholars
• Larry J. Leaven, Educator
• Paul Ortiz, Professor of History and Director of the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program at the University of Florida; Robert L. Hess Scholar 2023-224
• Karen Svodoba, Executive Director, Defense of Democracy
• Emerson Sykes, Senior Staff Attorney, American Civil Liberties Union
• Moderator: Carla España, Assistant Professor of Puerto Rican and Latino Studies and Ethyle R. Wolfe Institute for the Humanities Faculty Associate at Brooklyn College

Sponsored by the Frederic Ewen Civil Liberties and Academic Freedom Lecture and the Brooklyn College School of Education.

All events will be live-streamed on the Wolfe Institute’s YouTube Channel.

Free versions of Paul Ortiz’s writings and other relevant readings are available online to the Brooklyn College community.

Hosted by Brooklyn College’s Ethyle R. Wolfe Institute for the Humanities in honor of Professor Paul Ortiz, our 2023-24 Robert L. Hess Scholar-in-Residence.