7 Things You Didn't Know About Author & Scholar, Monique W. Morris, Ed.D.

For the month of May, the Bonded Book Club is reading and discussing Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools by Monique W. Morris. Leading up to our end-of-month discussion, we share response articles about our favorite chapter, essays, passages, or the author, as we work through the book alongside you. Please join us Wednesday, May 31st at noon for a Facebook Live discussion of the book in its totality.

It’s easy to get consumed by Pushout. It’s short, compelling, and solution-oriented. In less than two-hundred pages, Dr. Monique W. Morris artfully and succinctly covers a breadth of topics that demonstrate

why and how prejudiced policies, beliefs, and practices on the part of teachers, schools, and administrators dehumanize and criminalize Black girls in schools. Unlike similar books on the topic of race, gender, and education, Pushout doesn’t inundate the reader with facts, theories, stories told from the perspective of a researcher. Rather, Morris centers the concepts of Pushout around the experiences of seven girls, whom she profiles. The beauty (and horror) of Pushout is depicted in their first-person accounts of trauma (historical, physical, mental, sexual, and otherwise), poverty, transition, experience in the juvenile justice system, objectification, anger, defiance, and dignity. This book is a call to prioritize Black girls in our education system and justice movements, because quality education, she argues, is essential to liberation.

In reading Pushout, and listening to multiple interviews with Dr. Monique W. Morris, I found myself increasingly curious about the brilliant woman behind the research. Listen to five minutes of an interview with Morris; you’ll feel the same way. She’s erudite, while maintaining a keen ability to boil down complicated topics about intricate human experiences into digestible, compassionate points.

Although Morris makes complex conversations about education, gender, and race look easy, she’s got nearly three decades of experience in education, civil rights, and juvenile and social justice.

Here are seven facts you didn’t know about this month’s Bonded Book Club author, Dr. Monique W. Morris.

#1. She wrote her doctoral thesis on education and the intersection of gender and race for Black girls in confinement.

After earning a B.A. in Political Science and African American Studies and a Masters in Urban Planning from Columbia University, Morris went on to earn to earn a Doctorate of Education from Fielding Graduate University. Her thesis? Conceptualizing a Culturally Competent and Gender-Responsive Learning Environment for Northern California Black Girls in Confinement.

#2 She’s the Co-founder and President of the National Black Women’s Justice Institute.

As the Co-founder and President of the National Black Women’s Justice Institute (NBWJI), Dr. Morris works to “interrupt school-to-confinement pathways for girls, reduce the barriers to employment for formerly incarcerated women, and increase the capacity of organizations working to reduce sexual assault and domestic violence in African American communities.” Learn more about the NBWJI here.

#3 She’s written four books (and countless articles, chapters, and publications).

She’s authored: Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools, Black Stats: African Americans by the Numbers in the Twenty-First Century, Too Beautiful for Words, A Novel, and Poster Child: The Kemba Smith Story with Kemba Smith.

I’m sensing another Bonded Book Club selection.

#4. She’s a professor at Saint Mary’s College of Columbia, where she educates on social justice.

In an interview with the Benjamin Dixon show, Morris described starting each of her classes with a mindfulness exercise. Citing a study out of Stanford, Morris regularly employs empathic strategies in the classroom to keep students engaged and feeling more supported.

She’s held some other really badass jobs too, like Director at the Discrimination Research Center, Director of Research at UC Berkeley School of Law, the, Vice President for Advocacy and Research at the NAACP, and a Soros Justice Fellow at Open Society Foundations, where she authored "Race, Gender, and the School-to-Prison Pipeline: Expanding our Discussion to Include Black Girls." To name a few.

#5 She is a survivor of sexual assault.

In an interview with Education Week, Morris said, “I was always a high performer in school, but that didn't mean I was not subjected to differential treatment from some educators or to some of the thoughts and comments that triggered me in other ways to question my own behavior and my own body. I am a survivor of sexual assault, and this early victimization in my life has shaped how I read and respond to girls who also risk sexual victimization and who are in schools where now there are dress-code policies that allow for adults to continuously police the bodies of girls and to police the bodies of black girls in ways that they perceive to be different than the way in which their white or Asian counterparts have their bodies policed.”

#6 After the release of Pushout, Morris traveled the country interfacing between girls of color and school police officers to find solutions.

In partnership with NBWJI and the Georgetown Law Center on Poverty and Inequality, Morris worked to engage girls of color and school resource officers. In an interview with Education Week, Morris describes her effort: “What we wanted to do was engage law enforcement officers in an opportunity to talk about how they see their role as school resource officers and what engagement and training they've had on working specifically with girls of color. School resource officers have become part of the school climate, so it's very important to talk to them, too, about the implicit biases that they are engaging when they interface with girls of color and what kinds of training they're receiving to help reduce the use of harmful tactics when talking to and working with girls of color.”

#7 Morris has two daughters of her own.

They’re probably geniuses too!

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Find out more Dr. Monique W. Morris here.

Pick up a copy of Pushout: The Criminalization of Black Girls in Schools here.

If you’re itching to discuss the intersection of race, gender, and education, please join us for a live discussion of Pushout on Wednesday, May 31st at noon on Facebook Live. Share your questions, ideas, thoughts, and realizations in comments section. We’d love to connect with you.

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Brittany Kilpatrick is an attorney and co-founder of Bonded Magazine. She likes carbs, reading, pondering the intricacies of Donald Trump's spray tan, Beyoncé, Thesaurus.com, musicals, fully replacing her daily water intake with La Croix, and her dog, Tucker.

You can find her on Facebook or Instagram: @brittany.kilpatrick or on Bonded social media: @bondedmag. Email here here: brittany@bondedmagazine.com.