Longtime civil rights scholar Dr. Gary Orfield will receive the Marie Fielder Medal for Lifetime Achievement in Social Transformation.
Orfield, the Distinguished Research Professor of Education, Law, Political Science and Urban Planning at UCLA, will receive the award on Jan. 13 in Santa Barbara, Calif. The Fielding Graduate University’s Marie Fielder Center for Democracy, Leadership and Education cited Orfield for his research on civil rights, education policy, urban policy and minority opportunity.
“I greatly appreciate this lifetime achievement award, though working for social justice is its own reward,” said Orfield, was co-founder and director of the Harvard Civil Rights Project and is currently co-director of the Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles at UCLA. “It has been a great pleasure to participate in the struggles for racial equity in our country, which have won large victories but are far from over.
“After an election full of stereotypes and demagoguery, I call on my fellow academics and other concerned citizens to rededicate themselves as we face one of the most threatening reversals since the civil rights revolution.”
Orfield, who was named a Dr. John Hope Franklin Award winner in 2012 by Diverse, is the second Fielder honoree. Higher education icon Dr. Walter G. Bumphus, president and CEO of the American Association of Community Colleges, was the inaugural recipient last year.
