Abraham Krasnoff Courage and
Commitment Award Honoree
Professor john a. powell

Professor john a. powell is Executive Director of the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at the Ohio State University. He holds the Williams Chair in Civil Rights and Civil Liberties at the University's Moritz College of Law. His formal educational credentials include an undergraduate degree from Stanford University, the Juris Doctor from theUniversity of California at Berkeley, and a Post Doctoral Fellowship at the University of Minnesota.

Professor powell's professional experience is broad and rich. He is founder and past Director of the Institute on Race and Poverty at the University of Minnesota; he has served as National Legal Director of the American Civil Liberties Union, where he was instrumental in developing educational adequacy theory, and Director of Legal Services for the City of Miami, Florida. He has taught at Columbia University, Harvard Law School, American University, The University of San Francisco School of Law and the Law School at the University of Minnesota.

Professor powell was born in Detroit and has lived and worked in India, South America, Europe and Africa where he served as a consultant to the governments of Mozambique and South Africa. He is an internationally recognized scholar and authority on issues related to racialized space, regionalism, concentrated poverty, urban sprawl, smart growth, opportunity based housing, diversity, school segregation, the connection between spirituality and social justice and many other intersections of race and opportunity in a democratic society. He is a prolific writer with four books, 15 book chapters and more than 50 invited journal articles, essays and position papers listed on his curriculum vitae.

Under his leadership, The Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at The Ohio State University has taken a national leadership role in developing, researching, and advocating for an opportunity based housing model. This model provides a critical and creative framework for thinking about affordable housing, racialized space, and how an individual's destiny is impacted by where they live. The central principle of this model is that residents of metropolitan regions are situated within a complex and interconnected web of opportunity structures that significantly shapes their quality of life. These opportunity structures include education, health care, employment, transportation, and civic engagement.

Professor powell's opportunity based housing model requires that the creation and preservation of affordable housing must be deliberately and intelligently connected on a regional scale to high performing schools, sustained employment, adequate and affordable transportation, and institutions that facilitate civic and political engagement. Without an opportunity based strategy, affordable housing is often built in racially and economically segregated areas removed from these critical opportunity structures. The consequences include inadequate schools, high unemployment, high crime rates, inadequate health care and a general feeling of hopelessness among the residents of these communities—conditions that result in the marginalization of poor people and people of color.

Professor powell is a strong advocate for regional approaches to resolving the problems associated with segregation, concentrated poverty, economic isolation, failing schools, and public and private disinvestment in metropolitan regions. He is a member of the Metro Equity Sustainable Metropolitan Communities Initiative, funded by the Ford Foundation. The Metro Equity group is exploring, documenting and supporting patterns of metropolitan development designed to alleviate the concentration of poverty and conserve natural resources. The Kirwan Institute's ongoing research on racialized space, fragmentation, concentrated poverty and regional equity have contributed to the work of the Metro Equity initiative. A new book, Sustainable Metropolitan Communities – Breakthrough Stories , to be published for the Metro Equity project by MIT Press later this year, will include Professor powell's chapter, “Federated Regionalism as a Strategy for Social Justice.”

Professor powell served as an expert witness in the liability phase of a lawsuit filed by the ACLU of Maryland on behalf of a class of approximately 14,000 former, current and prospective tenants of Baltimore City public housing developments. The suit, filed in 1995, alleges that HUD denied Baltimore's African American public housing residents opportunities to locate throughout the Baltimore region and instead concentrated them in predominately minority areas within the city limits in violation of the Fair Housing Act. With the support of the analytical work conducted by the Kirwan Institute, Professor powell has proposed the adoption of an opportunity based housing model to remedy the fair housing violation. This approach has been embraced by both the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and the Maryland ACLU.

Under his leadership, the Kirwan Institute is involved in several research initiatives to support Gulf Coast rebuilding efforts and Katrina relief. The Institute has conducted analysis of the geographic distribution of opportunity throughout the New Orleans region. Research efforts have also focused on monitoring the status of redevelopment in the Gulf. Director powell has spoken throughout the nation on the significance of Katrina and has drafted several upcoming publications on how Katrina reflects greater problems in our society. The Institute is also an active participant in the National Alliance to Restore Opportunity to the Gulf Coast and Displaced Persons, a coalition of both faith based and secular non profit organizations advocating for greater federal assistance for those impacted by Hurricane's Katrina and Rita. The work of the Alliance can be seen on the web at www.linkedfate.org.

Honoree Professor john a. powell