Renowned scholar, activist and journalist Marc Lamont Hill criticized the racialized phenomenon of mass incarceration in America and called for prison and education reforms that prioritize rehabilitation over penalization at the 2025 Barbara L. Jackson Speaker Series at the Fordham Law School on Oct. 27.

Associate professor Liz Stosich, associate chair of Leadership, Administration and Policy at the Graduate School of Education (GSE), opened the event by detailing its history and discussing the continued impact of its namesake Jackson’s legacy. 

“Dr. Jackson’s research and pioneering leadership elevating the role of women and people of color continues to have a profound impact on the field of educational leadership,” Stosich said.

Hill transitioned from Jackson’s legacy to the broader theme of the lecture: how educational institutions should be reformed toward rehabilitative, rather than punitive, disciplinary policies. 

“America is not facing mass incarceration … but rather, mass incarceration of the vulnerable.” Marc Lamont Hill, Scholar, Activist and Journalist

The relevance of mass incarceration is only growing. According to the Prison Policy Initiative, a nonprofit organization that works “to document and publicize how mass incarceration punishes our entire society,” the U.S. “imprisons more people per capita than any other independent democracy.”  Contrarily, crime rates in the U.S. have decreased considerably since the ’90s. Hill clarified that this issue is divided on racial and gendered lines. 

“America is not facing mass incarceration … but rather, mass incarceration of the vulnerable … One in 15 Black males and one in 26 Hispanic males are currently incarcerated … women are now the fastest growing segment of the prison population,” Hill said. 

Hill said that modern U.S. prisons have cut back on rehabilitation programs, which often leads to repeated offenses.

“Access to reading materials, affordable phone calls to family, college degree programs, mental health resources — all of which are proven to reduce recidivism — have been stripped from many American prisoners,” Hill said.

“Instead of training grounds for democracy, too many of our schools have become little more than staging areas for the prison.” Marc Lamont Hill

Hill connected these realities to the world of education. 

“Our most vulnerable communities have been rendered disposable by the very institutions designed to protect them,” Hill said. “Instead of training grounds for democracy, too many of our schools have become little more than staging areas for the prison.”

Hill spoke to what he sees as an analogous reality between schools and prisons through increasing zero-tolerance policies and criminalization. He cited the presence of metal detectors and police officers in schools, and said he worries the increasing policing will lead to increased criminalization.

“Disciplinary actions once carried out by teachers and administrators are now being outsourced to local police,” Hill said. “Currently, two-thirds of high schools, half of middle schools and one-fifth of elementary schools have a police officer — an armed police officer — in the building.”

Hill said these policies create what he called “a pedagogy of criminalization,” which prioritizes “discipline, surveillance, isolation, punishment and exclusion.”

“The similarity between this scene and that of a prison is neither subtle nor coincidental,” Hill said. “From zero tolerance policies to punitive accountability measures to prison-level surveillance within the building, educational policy and school culture are increasingly shaped by the belief that order and control are the keys to success.”

Hill added that the intensity of policing at a given school is correlated to the number of students of color enrolled and pointed to the long history of the criminalization of Black people in America.

Acknowledging the proximity of these issues to people of color, the room had an audible reaction to the often-shared experience.  

“Freedom is always unreasonable within the logic of oppression … Like every successful freedom fighter before us, we must recklessly pursue the unreasonable until the unreasonable becomes inevitable.”  Marc Lamont Hill

Hill then outlined a call to action for educators to embrace what he called “a pedagogy of abolition.”

“Rather than a pedagogy of criminalization, we must adopt a pedagogy of abolition,” Hill said. “Instead of asking, ‘Who did it and how do we punish them?’ we must ask, ‘Who was harmed and how do we make them whole again?’” 

Hill emphasized that this reform requires imagination, calling on educators to have “unreasonable faith” in a better future. 

“It is easier for many of us to envision the end of the world itself than to envision a world without prisons,” Hill said. “Freedom is always unreasonable within the logic of oppression … Like every successful freedom fighter before us, we must recklessly pursue the unreasonable until the unreasonable becomes inevitable.” 

The event concluded with a question and answer portion, during which Hill was asked if he had seen successful examples of abolitionist education.

“I see in society pieces of abolition all the time,” Hill said. “When we look at progressive schooling visions that, as a policy, don’t suspend for truancy, that’s an abolitionist move … When we see restorative circles around conflict resolution in schools, that’s a major force.”

The event sparked hope toward a reformed society where schools are not pipelines to prison, but engines of democracy.