2025 Grawemeyer education award goes to Mark Warren for book ‘Willful Defiance’

For researching and writing “Willful Defiance: The Movement to Dismantle the School-to-Prison Pipeline,” a book that describes and analyzes the building of the grassroots movement to end racially disproportionate school discipline policy and policing practices in schools across the U.S., University of Massachusetts Boston Professor Mark R. Warren will receive the 2025 Grawemeyer Award for Education. 

In the book, Warren shows that some of the first people to name and challenge the school-to-prison pipeline (STPP) in a way that created a movement for change were Black and Brown parents and students of color in places like the Mississippi Delta. The movement they created played a pivotal role in placing the STPP on the agenda of educators and policymakers and led directly to the adoption by the Department of Education of federal guidelines warning against racially discriminatory school discipline policies. Where grassroots organizing has been strong and persistent, policymakers have ended zero-tolerance discipline policies and moved toward restorative alternatives, leading to important declines in exclusionary discipline, as well as more recent reforms to eliminate policing practices in schools.

“Change efforts in schools often focus on educators and school leaders, but usually fall short when it comes to addressing deep-seated systems that perpetuate inequity,” said Grawemeyer Award for Education Director and University of Louisville Professor of Educational Psychology Jeff Valentine. “As ‘Willful Defiance’ powerfully demonstrates, the voices, experiences, and leadership of those most affected by these issues must be central to any meaningful process of change.”

The Grawemeyer Award for Education has been given annually since 1989. Notable winners whose scholarship has influenced Warren include Howard Gardner, Linda Darling-Hammond, James Comer, Carol Gilligan, and Diane Ravitch.

Warren will accept his award at a ceremony in Louisville on April 10.

“I’m honored to receive this award, and particularly gratified to see community-engaged scholarship recognized with the highest merit,” said Warren. “I thank my community partners, Black and Brown parents, students, and community organizers, who worked with me to produce this book as part of a movement for educational justice.” 

About the Grawemeyer Awards

Each year the Grawemeyer Awards honor the power of creative ideas to improve our culture via music composition, education, religion, psychology, and world order. Business executive and family man H. Charles Grawemeyer established the awards in 1984 at the University of Louisville in collaboration with Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. Academics and community members choose among nominees from around the world to ensure that each winning idea is relevant to society at large. The University of Louisville announces the winners in December and presents the awards at a ceremony the following April. Each award winner receives $100,000, which they may use, if they choose, to develop and accelerate the spread of their powerful ideas. Learn more at grawemeyer.org.