Supported by an anonymous $4.9 million gift, the institute aims to promote scholarship about a federal right to a high-quality education and help school districts understand their obligations to protect students from discrimination under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.

“Each and every student should have access to a high-quality education that prepares them to be college and career-ready, [as well as] engaged citizens,” said Kimberly Jenkins Robinson, the institute’s inaugural director and the Martha Lubin Karsh and Bruce A. Karsh Bicentennial Professor of Law, at the kickoff event Oct. 16.

The institute also will assist schools in identifying federal resources available to fulfill their obligations, and promote data and research regarding educational opportunity gaps and federal resources that could close them.

At the launch event, Na’ilah Suad Nasir, president of the Spencer Foundation, a nonprofit that invests in education research, told leaders that she has been reflecting on the 70th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court decision that desegregated schools. She warned that integration and inequality can still walk hand-in-hand, due to practices like ability tracking that can separate children by race.

“In a zero-sum-game world, where we assume there is not enough good stuff to go around, privilege protects itself,” Nasir said.

Children also should see themselves represented in their teachers and school leaders, she added.

“Identity and learning are inseparable,” Nasir said. Students have an emotional need for safety and belonging, and when these things are present, students “are better able to learn, engage and develop identities as learners.”

Nasir said the Brown court case is “a cautionary tale for us to dream bigger.” She urged the audience to rethink ideas of democracy to create a system that provides “aspiration, access and advocacy” to all students.

She said research from the Education Rights Institute can aid in this dream. Scholars must do research “with people, rather than on them” to “reframe, rethink and recreate” education today.

Besides Nasir and Robinson, School of Law Dean Risa Goluboff and UVA President Jim Ryan also spoke at the launch event.