For Willful Defiance: The Movement to Dismantle the School-to-Prison Pipeline
Louisville, KY – On December 4, 2024, Mark R. Warren, Co-Founder and Facilitator of The People’s Think Tank for Education Justice (PTT), was awarded the 2025 Grawemeyer Award for Education by the University of Louisville. This prestigious award recognizes his groundbreaking work in researching and writing Willful Defiance: The Movement to Dismantle the School-to-Prison Pipeline.
In his award-winning book, Warren examines the grassroots movement led by Black and Brown parents and students of color, which has been instrumental in challenging and changing racially disproportionate school discipline policies and policing practices across the United States. His research highlights the pivotal role these communities have played in bringing the school-to-prison pipeline (STPP) to the forefront of educational and policy discussions, leading to significant reforms, including the adoption of federal guidelines against racially discriminatory school discipline policies.
“Change efforts in schools often focus on educators and school leaders, but usually fall short when it comes to addressing deep-seated systems that perpetuate inequity,” said Jeff Valentine, Director of the Grawemeyer Awards in Education and Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Louisville. “As Willful Defiance powerfully demonstrates, the voices, experiences, and leadership of those most affected by these issues must be central to any meaningful process of change.”
Warren expressed his gratitude for the recognition, stating, “I’m honored to receive this award, and particularly gratified to see community-engaged scholarship recognized with the highest merit. I thank my community partners in the People’s Think Tank, Black and Brown parents, students, and community organizers, who worked with me to produce this book as part of building a movement for educational justice.”
A short radio segment featuring Warren and his work can be found at https://www.lpm.org/news/2024-12-16/grawemeyer-award-winning-author-details-the-fight-against-school-to-prison-pipeline.
The People’s Think Tank remains committed to supporting, strengthening, and expanding the movement for educational justice. We create spaces led by community organizers, parents, young people, and the communities they serve, lifting up stories and strategies, building new knowledge and organizing models to create solidarity, dismantling anti-Black racism and systemic oppression in all its forms, and fostering collective love, sovereignty, healing, and well-being.
We extend our gratitude to the many organizations that have been doing similar work for years. Supporting the work of The People’s Think Tank means supporting award-winning, cutting-edge community-engaged scholarship that drives meaningful change.
For more information about The People’s Think Tank and its ongoing work, please follow us on Instagram at @peoplesthinktank.
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Contact:
Shaun de Vera, Project Manager
The People’s Think Tank
sdevera@schottfoundation.org
This document incorporates language from Grawemeyer Awards’ own press release (2024): http://grawemeyer.org/education/
For a PDF version of this Summary of Event, see below.