I’m serving as the discussant for a Presidential Session at AERA 2026—and this is one you don’t want to miss.

At the American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting, we are stepping into a conversation that is as urgent as it is necessary.

Unforgetting in an Era of Erasure: Resisting Anti-Justice Attacks and Envisioning Futures for Higher Education

📅 Friday, April 10, 2026
⏰ 11:45 AM – 1:15 PM
📍 Los Angeles Convention Center, Level Two – Room 408A

This is a Presidential Session. And it meets the moment.

Across the United States, we are witnessing a coordinated effort to reshape higher education—through law, policy, discourse, and institutional practice. What might appear as isolated attacks on DEI or curriculum are, in fact, deeply connected.

This session makes that visible.

Together, the papers map the full terrain of racial retrenchment:

• How law is being mobilized to constrain equity work and redefine the boundaries of what institutions can do
• How policymaker rhetoric uses race neutrality, emotional appeals, and claims of objectivity to reinforce dominant power 
• How institutions engage in what we might call repressive legalism, often going beyond the law to silence race-conscious work 
• And how even the language of DEI, belonging, equal opportunity shapes support, while deeper ideologies continue to structure resistance 

What emerges is not just a set of findings.

It is a pattern.

A system.

And a set of choices.

As discussant, my role is to sit with these contributions and ask:

What does it mean to act in this moment?

Because the research makes clear that this is not simply about policy change. It is about memory, power, and the struggle over what can be known, taught, and imagined in higher education

But this session is not only about diagnosing the problem.

It is also about how people resist.

This session does not look away.

It brings together a powerful group of scholars whose work spans law, policy, history, and lived experience:

Chair: Walter R. Allen (UCLA)

Discussant: Julian Vasquez Heilig (Western Michigan University)

Presenters:

• Kimberly Jenkins Robinson (University of Virginia School of Law)
• Veronica Adele Jones (University of North Texas)
• Kaleb L. Briscoe (University of Oklahoma)
• Uma Mazyck Jayakumar (University of California, Riverside)
• Rican Vue (University of California, Riverside)
• Royel M. Johnson (University of Southern California)
• Terrill O. Taylor (University of Maryland)

Across their papers and presentations, we will see:

• Interpretive reimagination instead of compliance
• Counterstorytelling as method and intervention
• Strategic navigation of legal and institutional constraints
• And what might be understood as fugitive or guerrilla forms of teaching and leadership—work that sustains justice even under conditions of surveillance and pressure

This is not just analysis.

This is strategy.
This is praxis.
This is community.

This is a space where we don’t just name what is happening—we begin to think together about what comes next.

Because unforgetting is not passive.
It is an act of resistance.
It is a refusal of erasure.
It is how we create futures that remain possible.

If you care about higher education, academic freedom, and justice—be in this room.

Come ready to think.
Come ready to engage.
Come ready to build.

We’ll see you there.

#AERA2026 #HigherEducation #AcademicFreedom #Equity #Justice #Unforgetting

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Julian Vasquez Heilig has been an active member of the American Educational Research Association for more than two decades, attending 23 AERA Annual Meetings since 2001 and contributing extensively to the organization’s scholarly and service mission. His leadership roles include serving as Chair of AERA Division L Section 5 (Accountability), Chair of AERA Division A Section 2 (School Organization and Effects), and Chair of the AERA E.F. Lindquist Award Committee, as well as membership on major committees such as the Relating Research to Practice Award Committee and the Outstanding Policy Report Award Committee. He has also been a consistent contributor as a presenter, panelist, and discussant in refereed sessions, Presidential panels, and town halls, while providing ongoing service as a peer reviewer across multiple AERA divisions (A, G, L, and Scholars of Color in Education).