Illinois State University will celebrate Black History Month with speaker Adrienne Dixson presenting “Are we there yet?: Race, protest and the challenge of multicultural education” at 7 p.m. Wednesday, February 28, in the Prairie Room of the Bone Student Center.

The talk is free, open to the public, and part of the Illinois State University Speaker Series.

Dixson currently serves as professor of critical race theory and education at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her scholarship examines race, class, and gender in urban educational contexts, with a particular interest in how these issues impact educational equity for students and people of color in the urban south. Her work is widely published in academic journals and edited books.

Her most recent books include Critical Race Theory and Education: All God’s Children Got a Song, Handbook of Critical Race Theory and Education, Resegregation of Schools: Education and Race in the 21st Century (Routledge), and Researching Race in Education: Policy, Practice and Qualitative Research (IAP Publishing).

Dixson earned a bachelor’s degree in music theory and composition from the Dana School of Music at Youngstown State University in Ohio, a master’s degree in educational studies at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, and a Ph.D. in multicultural education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

The Illinois State University Speaker Series seeks to bring innovative and enlightening speakers to the campus with the aim of providing the community with a platform to foster dialogue, cultivate enriching ideas, and continue an appreciation of learning as an active and lifelong process. All talks are free and open to the public.