Alumni Stories: Harry Black
Giving Constituents Their Day in Court
Harry Isaiah Black believes that “we can’t solve societal issues without involving society”
July 2022
When Harry Isaiah Black (CPRL Fall 2016) served as a corps member for Teach For America in New Orleans six years after Hurricane Katrina, he saw a good deal of poverty and inequity. But he was also fortunate enough to teach in well-funded charter schools where students were encouraged to dream large and believe they could succeed. He came away from the experience convinced that the nation’s education model, which measures learning primarily on the basis of test scores, was missing a key dimension.
“Test data doesn’t give you the full picture of a child,” says Black, currently the George A. Katz Fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law. “For each kid, aside from test scores, teachers need to ask: What is the child’s life goals? How can we make the child’s schoolwork relevant to achieving those goals?” He adds, “Showing the student you care about him or her is as impactful as the knowledge you’re trying to impart.”
Black is grateful to teachers who took such an interest in him, which aided him in overcoming his own early struggles with spelling and mathematics. From this childhood experience he developed an instinct for “understanding the people you’re trying to help.” While working on a project for CPRL, that instinct evolved into a belief that “the people most affected by a policy or court ruling need to inform that policy or ruling.”
For the project, Black collaborated with other students as they helped a state agency develop an approach for desegregating the state’s public schools. The effort, which sought to promote integration by equipping system leaders with the financial and technical support to design district-wide diversity plans, faced two major obstacles.
“The first thing we had to do was figure out how to measure segregation,” Black says. “It sounds obvious, but due to Supreme Court rulings, the use of race, even in public school settings, is a tough sell politically and legally. So we had to show how we could make it work, because even if schools are on board with the idea that integration is good, there’s hesitation about doing anything that might be challenged legally.”
“Evolutionary Learning is a brilliant theory for how to make genuinely grass roots-based change,” Black says. “Because you can’t force things top-down on people—especially in education, and especially if it’s anything controversial.”
The other issue was resistance from parents—namely, White parents.
“It’s been shown through numerous studies that diversity and inclusion enrich the lives of all students, and if you were to do a poll, a lot of parents would say they want a diverse school,” Black says. “But when presented with the opportunity to have their schools integrated, white parents sometimes push back, as they are concerned that their children will no longer receive the quality education they are accustomed to receiving.”
The group solved both problems by employing CPRL’s Evolutionary Learning Framework, which involves working closely with communities and making change iteratively, based on feedback from those involved.
“Evolutionary Learning is a brilliant theory for how to make genuinely grass roots-based change,” Black says. “Because you can’t force things top-down on people—especially in education, and especially if it’s anything controversial.”
Black’s team created professional learning communities that brought together teachers, parents and administrators to develop grassroots strategies. Together, these communities sharpened their knowledge and skills regarding school integration and coalesced around shared goals for diversifying their schools.
Reflecting upon his CPRL experience, Black says, the program motivated him “to be a solid advocate for people who need it.” He adds, “CPRL does a great job of showing you how that can be done in real time. It’s really galvanizing to go out and work on larger systemic issues.”
“[In my clerkships], I learned a lot about what a court can and can’t accomplish. For instance, courts have the ability to bring key stakeholders to the table so they can collectively transform a wide range of entities, including police forces, hospitals, schools and jails. It’s Evolutionary Learning at work—we can’t resolve societal issues if we don’t involve society.”
Black received his law degree from New York University, where he wrote an award-winning article on the need for federal legislation to provide procedural protections for at-risk, general-education students. He also interned in the general counsel’s office of the New York City Department of Education when Carmen Fariña was schools chancellor, worked at an elite New York city law firm, and served as a judicial clerk for the Hon. Lawrence E. Kahn of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York and the Hon. Carl E. Stewart of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
Asked about his clerkship experiences, Black says, “I learned a lot about what a court can and can’t accomplish. For instance, courts have the ability to bring key stakeholders to the table so they can collectively transform a wide range of entities, including police forces, hospitals, schools and jails. It’s Evolutionary Learning at work—we can’t resolve societal issues if we don’t involve society.”
In his current role at the Brennan Center, Black has focused on voting rights and redistricting. He says the work involves “the same advocacy principles of giving a voice to the people I’m fighting for, not just by channeling their hopes and desires through my work, but by enabling them to say their piece.”
Black is uncertain about his future career plans, but says it will “definitely involve serving as an advocate for marginalized communities, with education issues as a centerpiece.
“Education is magic; it’s the great equalizer,” he says. “The fight for education reform is a constant struggle. Sometimes we get it right, sometimes we get it wrong, but we can never stop trying, because there are millions of kids whose lives and fortunes depend on it.”
In Their Own Words
Our alumni network now includes more than 500 leaders, advocates, and champions dedicated to improving school systems and other public sectors. Some alumni work directly with teachers, families, and students, ensuring access to high-quality education. Others work indirectly—supporting improvement from inside private sector organizations. In Their Own Words captures the many and varied ways our alumni lead and improve organizations in education and other public sectors.
About the Author
Joe Levine writes about education, law, science and medicine, and health care. His work has appeared in Time, LIFE, Money, Newsday, and many university magazines.