Study Group: Legislative Attacks on Belonging & Diversity Session 1

Defund, Eliminate, and Intimidate: Southern Legislative Attacks on Efforts to Ensure Belonging and Stifle Diverse Voices

Fall 2025 Study Group

Carr-Ryan Center for Human Rights, Harvard Kennedy School

Convened and Moderated by Antonio Lavalle Ingram II, esq.

Description

The current attacks on so called Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion measures in public education have reached a crescendo in states like Mississippi and Alabama. Despite the long history of discrimination and persistent racial disparities, southern legislators have passed laws banning state funding for efforts to increase belonging for Black Americans, LGBTQIA Americans and other minoritized populations. This study group will explore two lawsuits, one in Mississippi and one in Alabama, where represented Plaintiffs seek to challenge state laws prohibiting so called Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programming and curriculum. Participants will learn about how advocates have legally challenged efforts to ban initiatives designed to foster more belonging in educational institutions through lectures and active discussion of legal filings and opinions.

Registration is capped at 20 participants. Registration will be first come, first served.

Location/Time

The study group will take place virtually twice over the Fall 2025 semester on the following dates:

Session 1:       Monday, 11/03/2025  12:00 pm – 1:15 pm   

Session 2:       Monday, 11/17/2025  12:00 pm – 1:15 pm   

1)   November 3 – Attacks on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Mississippi

• Mississippi House Bill 1193: H.B. 1193, 2025 Leg., Reg. Sess. (Miss. 2025)
• Complaint, Miss. Ass'n of Educators v. Bd. of Trustees of State Insts. of Higher Learning, No. 3:25-cv-417-HTW-LGI (S.D. Miss. filed June 9, 2025)
• Preliminary Injunction Order: Miss. Ass'n of Educators v. Bd. of Trustees of State Insts. of Higher Learning, No. 3:25-cv-417-HTW-LGI, 2025 WL 2142676 (S.D. Miss. July 20, 2025)

Moderator/Facilitator

Antonio L. Ingram II, esq. serves as Senior Counsel at the Legal Defense Fund, where he works on cases and matters that advance racial justice in educational equity and political participation. Prior to joining LDF, Mr. Ingram litigated as a senior associate at Boies Schiller Flexner LLP, where he maintained an active pro bono practice and represented incarcerated individuals in Post-Conviction Relief Proceedings seeking to overturn non-unanimous jury verdicts. Mr. Ingram began his career at Morrison and Foerster LLP, where he was a junior litigation associate and represented unhoused plaintiffs challenging a city’s anti-homeless ordinances, a family who experienced an unreasonable search by a police department, and a refugee in removal proceedings because of ineffective assistance of counsel claims. Mr. Ingram received his J.D. from UC Berkeley School of Law and B.A. from Yale College and served as a law clerk to the Honorable Ivan L.R. Lemelle on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana and Chief Judge Roger L. Gregory for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. Between his federal clerkships, Mr. Ingram served as a Fulbright Public Policy Fellow to Malawi where he served as a special assistant in Malawi’s Anti-Corruption Bureau.