Press

WASHINGTON — Today, The Leadership Conference Education Fund released a report detailing current standards for collecting race and ethnicity data in all 50 states. The report — “Disaggregation Nation: A Landscape Review of State Race & Ethnicity Data Collection” — provides an unprecedented national overview of race and ethnicity data collection standards. It finds that while some states have made significant progress in collecting accurate, disaggregated race and ethnicity data, others are lagging behind and failing to collect data that meaningfully shed light on disparities that we know exist but cannot quantify. This research builds on The Education Fund’s work, in concert with state and national partners, to shed light on the power of equitable race and ethnicity data to help identify and address systemic inequalities and design targeted policies that uplift underrepresented communities.

WASHINGTON DC — Today, The Leadership Conference Education Fund launched an unprecedented initiative to create a fair, just, opportunity-rich, and rights-advancing future for all in the face of artificial intelligence with the creation of The Center for Civil Rights and Technology. The Center will serve as a convener, collaborator, and communicator on policy issues, ideas, and potential innovations that can advance, as well as protect, equity in society. Dr. Alondra Nelson — who served as deputy assistant to President Joe Biden and acting director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy — will serve as a senior advisor on Civil Rights and Technology to the president and CEO, Maya Wiley.

DALLAS — The Dallas Office of Community Police Oversight (OCPO), Dallas Action, and The Leadership Conference Education Fund today released a report — “A Second Look: An Analysis of Persisting Disparities in Dallas Misdemeanor Arrests” — as a follow-up to a 2021 report that The Education Fund co-authored with OCPO. That report analyzed the disproportionate enforcement of misdemeanors on the city’s Black and Brown residents.

WASHINGTON – One year after the Biden administration released plans for agencies to advance equity, The Leadership Conference Education Fund is releasing “Data for Equity: A Review of Federal Agency Equity Action Plans.” “Data for Equity” — which makes eight specific recommendations about how federal agencies can improve the collection, analysis, and sharing of data — is the fourth in The Education Fund’s series of reports about civil rights data collection.

WASHINGTON – The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and The Leadership Conference Education Fund announced today that Eunic Epstein-Ortiz has joined the organizations as the new executive vice president of communications.

WASHINGTON – The Leadership Conference Education Fund (The Education Fund) and the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) released a new report, “A Matter of Life and Death: The Importance of the Death in Custody Reporting Act,” which analyzes past efforts to implement the Death in Custody Reporting Act (DCRA) and how key aspects of requirements have changed with each reauthorization. This report makes specific recommendations about how the Department of Justice can fully implement DCRA with the administrative tools currently available.

WASHINGTON — The Leadership Conference Education Fund today released the results of a national survey exploring people’s opinions on affirmative action, diversity, and opportunity in higher education. The survey, commissioned by The Education Fund and conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago, found that a majority of people in America believe that diverse college and university campuses are beneficial to students, college admissions should take into account a student’s whole story, and the U.S. Supreme Court must protect affirmative action.